The Merchant Navy has been in existence for a significant period in British history, owing much of its growth to British imperial expansion, as an entity in itself it can be dated back to the 17th century, where an attempt was made to register all seafarers as a source of labour for the Royal Navy in times of conflict.[2] That registration of merchant seafarers failed, and it was not successfully implemented until 1835. British ships were also deeply involved in acts of piracy and armed robbery on the high seas, off the waters of Europe and Caribbean, as ships with British sailors robbed from ships of foreign navies,[3] the merchant fleet grew over successive years to become the world's foremost merchant fleet, benefiting considerably from trade with British possessions in India and the Far East. The lucrative trade in sugar, contraband (opium to China), spices and tea (carried by ships such as the Cutty Sark) helped to solidify this dominance in the 19th century.

In the First and Second World Wars, the Merchant Service suffered heavy losses from German U-boat attacks. A policy of unrestricted warfare meant that merchant seafarers were also at risk of attack from enemy ships, the tonnage lost to U-boats in the First World War was around 7,759,090 tons,[4] and around 14,661 merchant seafarers were killed. In honour of the sacrifice made by merchant seafarers in the First World War, George V granted the title "Merchant Navy" to the service.

Badge of the British Merchant Navy

In 1928 George V made Edward, Prince of Wales "Master of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets";[5] a title he retained after his accession in January 1936 and relinquished only at his abdication that December. Since Edward VIII the title has automatically been held by the sovereigns George VI and Elizabeth II.[6] When the UK entered the Second World War in September 1939 George VI issued this message:

Second World War poster highlighting wartime dangers that the Merchant Navy faced

In these anxious days I would like to express to all Officers and Men and in The British Merchant Navy and The British Fishing Fleets my confidence in their unfailing determination to play their vital part in defence. To each one I would say: Yours is a task no less essential to my people's experience than that allotted to the Navy, Army and Air Force. Upon you the Nation depends for much of its foodstuffs and raw materials and for the transport of its troops overseas. You have a long and glorious history, and I am proud to bear the title "Master of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets". I know that you will carry out your duties with resolution and with fortitude, and that high chivalrous traditions of your calling are safe in your hands. God keep you and prosper you in your great task.[7]

In the Second World War, German U-boats sank nearly 14.7 million tons of Allied shipping,[8] which amounted to 2,828 ships (around two thirds of the total allied tonnage lost). The United Kingdom alone suffered the loss of 11.7 million tons, which was 54% of the total Merchant Navy fleet at the outbreak of the Second World War. 32,000 merchant seafarers were killed aboard convoy vessels in the war, but along with the Royal Navy, the convoys successfully imported enough supplies to allow an Allied victory.

In honour of the sacrifices made in the two World Wars, the Merchant Navy lays wreaths of remembrance alongside the armed forces in the annual Remembrance Day service on 11 November. Following many years of lobbying to bring about official recognition of the sacrifices made by merchant seafarers in two world wars and since, Merchant Navy Day became an official day of remembrance on 3 September 2000.

Despite maintaining its dominant position for many decades, the decline of the British Empire in the mid-20th century inevitably led to the decline of the merchant fleet, for example, in 1939 the Merchant Navy was the largest in the world with 33% of total tonnage.[9] By 2012, the Merchant Navy — yet still remaining one of the largest in the world — held only 3% of total tonnage.[10]

According to the CIA World Fact Book, in 2010 the Merchant Navy consisted of 504 UK registered ships of 1,000 gross register tons (GRT) or over. In addition, UK merchant marine interests possessed a further 308 ships registered in other countries and 271 foreign-owned ships were registered in the UK.[11]

In 2012 British merchant marine interests consisted of 1,504 ships of 100 GRT or over. This included ships either UK directly owned, parent-owned or managed by a British company, this amounted to: 59,413,000 GRT or alternatively 75,265,000 DWT.[10] This is according to the annual maritime shipping statistics provided by the British Government and the Department for Transport.

As a signatory to the STCW Convention UK ships are commanded by Deck Officers and Engineering Officers.[12] Officers undergo 3 years of training, known as a cadetship at one of the approved maritime colleges in the United Kingdom, these include Warsash Maritime Academy, South Tyneside College, Fleetwood, Plymouth University and City of Glasgow College.[13] Cadets usually have a choice of two academic routes; Foundation Degree or Higher National Diploma.[12] Successful completion of this results in a qualification in marine operations or marine engineering. Generally the costs of a cadetship will be met by sponsorship from a UK shipping company,[14] during the 3 years of training, cadets also go to sea, for a period of a year or more, usually spread across the cadetship. This affords a practical education, that along with the academic time in college prepares a candidate for a separate and final oral exam, this oral exam is carried out with a Master Mariner at an office of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Successful completion of the oral exam will result in the award of a certificate of competency, this is the international qualification, issued by the UK government which allows an Officer to work in their qualified capacity onboard a ship. Certificates are issued for different ranks and as such an Officer will usually return to complete a subsequent series of studies until they reach the highest qualification.

The first UK Deck Officer certificates of competency were issued in 1845, conducted then, as now, by a final oral exam with a Master Mariner,[15] the training regime for Officers is set out in the official syllabus of the Merchant Navy Training Board.[16] This training still encompasses all of the traditional trades such as celestial navigation, ship stability, general cargo and seamanship, but now includes training in business, legislation, law, and computerisation for deck officers and marine engineering principles, workshop technology, steam propulsion, motor (diesel) propulsion, auxiliaries, mechanics, thermodynamics, engineering drawing, ship construction, marine electrics as well as practical workshop training for engineering officers.

Historically a person wishing to one day become a captain, or master prior to about 1973, had five choices. To attend one of the three elite naval schools from the age of 12, the fixed-base HMS Conway and HMS Worcester or Pangbourne Nautical College, which would automatically lead to an apprenticeship as a seagoing cadet officer; apply to one of several training programmes elsewhere, or go to sea immediately by applying directly to a merchant shipping company at about age 17. Then there would be three years (with prior training or four years without) of seagoing experience aboard ship, in work-clothes and as mates with the deck crew, under the direction of the bo'sun cleaning bilges, chipping paint, polishing brass, cement washing freshwater tanks, and holystoning teak decks, and studying navigation and seamanship on the bridge in uniform, under the direction of an officer, before taking exams to become a second mate.

Historically, the composition of the crew on UK ships was diverse, this was a characteristic of the extant of the shipping companies trade, the extent of the British Empire and the availability of crew in different ports. One ship might have a largely all British crew, while another might have a crew composed of many Indians, Chinese or African sailors. Crews from outside Britain were usually drawn from areas in which the ship traded, so Far East trading ships had either Singapore or Hong Kong crews, banana boats had West Indian crews, ships trading to West Africa and Southern Africa had African crews and ships trading to the Indian Ocean (including East Africa) had crews from the Indian subcontinent. Crews made up of recruits from Britain itself were commonly used on ships trading across the North Atlantic, to South America and to Australia and New Zealand. Traditionally and still now, the ships crew is run by the Bosun, as overseen by a responsible Deck Officer, usually the Chief Mate. A ship may also have different sub-departments, such as the galley, radio department or hospitality services, overseen by a Chief Cook, Radio Officer or Chief Steward. Many of these roles have now changed, as ships crews have become smaller in commercial shipping, on most ships the Radio department has disappeared, along with the Radio Officer (colloquially known as 'sparks') replaced by changes in technology and the requirement under the STCW Convention for Deck Officers to hold individual certification in the GMDSS System. Electro-technical Officers (ETO) also serve aboard some ships and are trained to fix and maintain the more complex systems.

Joseph Conrad: joined the Merchant Navy in 1874, rising through the ranks of Second Mate and First Mate, to Master in 1886. Left in order to write professionally, becoming one of the 20th century's greatest novelists.

Arthur Phillip: joined the Merchant Navy in 1751 and 37 years later founded the city of Sydney, Australia as the First Governor of New South Wales, which then included the eastern half of the Australia we know today, plus New Zealand.

"to those who are serving or have served in the Merchant Navy and fishing fleets of the UK, Isle of Man or Channel Islands for exemplary service and devotion to duty, rewarding those who have set an outstanding example to others."[19]

It is the first state award for meritorious service in the history of the Merchant Navy.[20] Recipients must be nominated by someone other than themselves, with at least two written letters of support and are normally required to have completed 20 years service in the Merchant Navy (although in exceptional circumstances it may less).[21]

The British Merchant Navy consists of various private shipping companies, over the decades many companies have come and gone, merged, changed their name or changed owners. British Shipping is represented nationally and globally by the UK Chamber of Shipping, headquartered in London.[22]

SR Merchant Navy class
–
The SR Merchant Navy class is a class of air-smoothed 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotives designed for the Southern Railway by Oliver Bulleid. The Pacific design was chosen in preference to several proposed by Bulleid. The first members of the class were constructed during the Second World War, in addition the locomotives featured thermic syphons in th

2.
A driving wheel of the distinctive Bulleid Firth Brown design, seen here on 35010 Blue Star. Note the balance weight on the lower right, a feature not present on the Merchant Navy locomotives as-built.

United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border wi

4.
The Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.

Merchant navy
–
A merchant navy or merchant marine is the fleet of merchant vessels that are registered in a specific country. The following is a partial list of the merchant navies or merchant marines of various countries, in many countries the fleets proper name is simply the capitalized version of the common noun. The British Merchant Navy comprises the British

1.
A United States World War II recruiting poster for the merchant marine

International Maritime Organization
–
The IMO was established in Geneva in 1948 and came into force ten years later, meeting for the first time in 1959. Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, the IMO has 172 Member States, IMO is governed by an assembly of members and is financially administered by a council of members elected from the assembly. The work of IMO is conducted through f

1.
IMO headquarters in London

2.
International Maritime Organization

Royal Fleet Auxiliary
–
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is a civilian-manned fleet owned by the United Kingdoms Ministry of Defence, whose purpose is to support the Royal Navy. The RFA enables ships of the Royal Navy to maintain operations around the world and its primary role is to supply the Royal Navy with fuel, ammunition and supplies, normally by replenishment at sea. It a

3.
MV Hartland Point, a Point-class sealift ship available to the Ministry of Defence as part of a private finance initiative.

4.
Wave Knight (Wave -class)

Maritime and Coastguard Agency
–
It is also responsible for land based search and rescue helicopter operations from 2015. The organisation is led by Sir Alan Massey, its Chief Executive, the MCA are chiefly responsible for the syllabus and national training standards issued by the Merchant Navy Training Board. The MCA has now established an Automatic Identification System network

1.
Maritime and Coastguard Agency

The Marine Society
–
For the Marine Societeit of Surabaya, Indonesia see, Military Canteen of Royal Netherlands Navy The Marine Society was a British charity, the worlds first established for seafarers. In 1756, at the beginning of the Seven Years War against France, Austria, ten men were duly clothed and delivered to ships of the King’s navy. In this small way began t

1.
Plaque marking site of the foundation of The Marine Society

Red Ensign
–
The Red Ensign or Red Duster is the civil ensign of the United Kingdom. It is one of the British ensigns, and it is used either plain and it is the flag flown by British Merchant ships since 1707. Prior to 1707 an English red ensign and a Scottish red ensign were flown by the English and Scottish navies respectively. The precise date of the first a

Maritime history of the United Kingdom
–
Until the advent of air transport and the creation of the Channel Tunnel, marine transport was the only way of reaching the British Isles. For this reason, maritime trade and naval power have always had great importance, prior to the Acts of Union,1707, the maritime history of the British Isles was largely dominated by that of England. The main Bri

1.
RMS Titanic, days before sinking.

2.
The Battle of Trafalgar.

3.
HMS Dreadnought

4.
HMS Ark Royal in 1976.

Merchant vessel
–
A merchant vessel or trading vessel is a boat or ship that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This excludes pleasure craft that do not carry passengers for hire, most countries of the world operate fleets of merchant ships. However, due to the costs of operations, today these fleets are in many cases sailing under the flags of nations

Ship transport
–
Ship transport is watercraft carrying people or goods. Freight transport has been achieved widely by sea throughout recorded history, although the importance of sea travel for passengers has decreased due to aviation, it is effective for short trips and pleasure cruises. Transport by water is cheaper than transport by air, despite fluctuating excha

Merchant marine
–
A merchant navy or merchant marine is the fleet of merchant vessels that are registered in a specific country. The following is a partial list of the merchant navies or merchant marines of various countries, in many countries the fleets proper name is simply the capitalized version of the common noun. The British Merchant Navy comprises the British

1.
A United States World War II recruiting poster for the merchant marine

King George V
–
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. He was the son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. From the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession behind his father and his own brother, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence. From 1877 to 1891, Georg

First World War
–
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts i

Royal Navy
–
The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for

Piracy
–
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship- or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable items or properties. Those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates, the earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples,

Privateer
–
A privateer was a private person or ship that engaged in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law, a percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission. Since robbery under arms was common to trade, all merchant ships were already armed. During war, naval resources w

India
–
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to

3.
Writing the will and testament of the Mughal king court in Persian, 1590–1595

Far East
–
The Far East is an alternate geographical term in English, that usually refers to East Asia, the Russian Far East, and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons, since the 1960s, East Asia has become the most common term for the region in international mass media outlets. Far East is often deprecated as

1.
Location of the Far East, geographically defined

Sugar
–
Sugar is the generic name for sweet, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. There are various types of derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose, fructose, the table sugar or granulated sugar most customarily used as food is sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. Sugar is

Opium Wars
–
The Opium Wars were two wars in the mid-19th century involving Anglo-Chinese disputes over British trade in China and Chinas sovereignty. The disputes included the First Opium War and the Second Opium War, the wars and events between them weakened the Qing dynasty and forced China to trade with the rest of the world. The First Opium War, during 183

1.
British bombardment of Canton from the surrounding heights, May 1841

Opium
–
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, the word meconium historically referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies. The production of opium has not changed since ancient times, through selec

1.
Opium poppy seed pod exuding latex from a cut

2.
Opium poppy seed and flower at Budhha lodge of Chaurikharka,Nepal

3.
Apothecary vessel for storage of opium as a pharmaceutical, Germany, 18th or 19th century

Spices
–
A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, sometimes, spices may be ground into a powder for convenience. Spices are sometimes used in medicine, religious rituals, cosmetics or perfume production, the sp

Tea
–
Tea is an aromatic beverage commonly prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to Asia. After water, it is the most widely consumed drink in the world, Tea originated in Southwest China, where it was used as a medicinal drink. It was popularized as a drink during the Chinese Tang

Cutty Sark
–
Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. She continued as a ship until purchased in 1922 by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, by 1954, she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display. Cut

1.
Cutty Sark in 2015

3.
Cutty Sark with sails set. Photograph taken at sea by Captain Woodget with a camera balanced on two of the ship's boats lashed together.

U-boat Campaign (World War I)
–
The U-boat Campaign from 1914 to 1918 was the World War I naval campaign fought by German U-boats against the trade routes of the Allies. It took place largely in the seas around the British Isles, in the course of events, German U-boats sank almost 5,000 ships with nearly 13 million gross register ton, losing 178 boats and about 5,000 men in comba

1.
A German postcard depicting the "SM U-20" U-boat sinking of RMS Lusitania.

2.
German U-boat U 14

3.
The British steamer Andex sinking after being torpedoed by a U-boat

4.
Official warning issued by Imperial German Embassy

Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945)
–
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, running from 1939 to the defeat of Germany in 1945. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war and it was at its height from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943. The convoys, coming mainly from North Ame

1.
Officers on the bridge of an escorting British destroyer stand watch for enemy submarines, October 1941.

2.
VizeadmiralKarl Dönitz, commander of German U-boats (BdU), 1935–1943; Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, 1943–1945.

3.
The German submarine base in Lorient

4.
A U-boat shells a merchant ship which has remained afloat after being torpedoed

Second World War
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directl

U-boat
–
U-boat is the anglicised version of the German word U-Boot, a shortening of Unterseeboot, literally undersea boat. While the German term refers to any submarine, the English one refers specifically to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against

George V of the United Kingdom
–
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. He was the son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. From the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession behind his father and his own brother, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence. From 1877 to 1891, Georg

Edward VIII
–
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India, from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December the same year. Edward was the eldest son of George V and Mary of Teck and he was named Prince of Wales on his sixteenth birthday, nine weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young

Edward VIII abdication crisis
–
The marriage was opposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth. Religious, legal, political and moral objections were raised, as British monarch, Edward was the nominal head of the Church of England, which did not then allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still alive. F

George VI
–
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India and the first Head of the Commonwealth, known as Albert until his accession, George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, and was named after his great-grandfather

1.
Formal portrait, c. 1940–46

2.
Four kings: Edward VII (far right), his son George, Prince of Wales, later George V (far left), and grandsons Edward, later Edward VIII (rear), and Albert, later George VI (foreground), c. 1908

Elizabeth II
–
Elizabeth II has been Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand since 6 February 1952. Elizabeth was born in London as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the

Remembrance Day
–
Following a tradition inaugurated by King George V in 1919, the day is also marked by war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries. Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November in most countries to recall the end of hostilities of World War I on that date in 1918, the First World War officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versaille

British Empire
–
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history an

List of merchant navy capacity by country
–
List of merchant navy capacity by flag is a list of the world foremost fleets of registered trading vessels ranked in both gross register tonnage and deadweight tonnage sorted by flag state. The table is based on the maritime shipping statistics provided by the British Government. It is complete and correct for the year ending 2012, statistics are

1.
Present-day merchant shipping in the world's oceans

CIA World Fact Book
–
The World Factbook is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is available from the National Technical Information Service, Other companies—such as Skyhorse Publishing—also print a paper edition. The Factbook is available in the form

1.
Cover of the latest government print edition of The World Factbook (2013–14 edition)

2.
A map of Serbia and Montenegro from the 2000 edition of The World Factbook. Notice how the disclaimer is printed in the upper right hand corner. One can see how the capital cities of both republics are individually labeled on the map.

Deadweight tonnage
–
Deadweight tonnage or tons deadweight is a measure of how much mass a ship is carrying or can safely carry, it does not include the weight of the ship. DWT is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provisions, passengers, DWT is often used to specify a ships maximum permissible deadweight, although it may also denote the

1.
The more heavily loaded a ship is, the lower she sits in the water. Maximum DWT is the amount of weight a ship can carry without riding dangerously low in the water.

2.
Scale for a 6,000 tonne DWT ship.

Government of the United Kingdom
–
Her Majestys Government, commonly referred to as the UK government or British government, is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The government is led by the Prime Minister, who all the remaining ministers. The prime minister and the other most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making co

1.
Main entrance of 10 Downing Street, the residence and offices of the First Lord of HM Treasury

Warsash Maritime Academy
–
Warsash Maritime Academy is a maritime training college and is part of Southampton Solent University. The academy campus is just east of Southampton aside the River Hamble, the college provides education, training, consultancy and research to the international shipping and off-shore oil industries. It is one of the United Kingdoms colleges responsi

2.
The Academy Pier, used for sea-survival and lifeboat training as well as watersports and motor boat training.

Southampton
–
Southampton, on the south coast of England, is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire. It is 75 miles south-west of London and 19 miles north-west of Portsmouth, Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest. It lies at the northernmost point of Southampton Water at the confluence of the Rivers Test and Itchen,

1.
Montage of Southampton. Clockwise from top-left: Bargate; Guilldhall; Top of west walls; Wool house and custom house; Southwestern house

Alan West, Baron West of Spithead
–
Prior to his ministerial appointment, he was First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 2002 to 2006. He is the current Chancellor of Southampton Solent University, West was born on 21 April 1948 in Lambeth, London, and was educated at Windsor Grammar School and Clydebank High School. He was confirmed as a sub-lieutenant on 1 September 1969,

1.
Lord West in September 2013

2.
The frigate HMS Ardent which West commanded during the Falklands War

4.
Admiral Sir Alan West, then First Sea Lord, is pictured with the official chart of anchorages for the International Fleet Review

Deck department
–
The deck department is an organisational team on-board naval and merchant ships. The department and its requirements, including the responsibilities of each rank are regulated within the STCW Convention. The department is led by Deck Officers, who are Licensed mariners, the Deck department is divided into Deck Officers and Ratings. All ranks in the

1.
The deck department is responsible for safely receiving, discharging, and caring for cargo during a voyage.

South Tyneside College
–
South Tyneside College is a large further education college in South Tyneside in North East England. Its main site is in the town of South Shields, the college offers part-time and full-time courses for young students and adults. The college is one of the largest merchant navy training colleges in the United Kingdom. It offers courses in marine sub

1.
South Tyneside College

Blackpool and The Fylde College
–
Blackpool and the Fylde College is an Ofsted outstanding further and higher education college in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. Facilities include 4 main campuses located across the Fylde Coast, all of which have undergone or are currently undergoing major redevelopment. The college is an Associate College of Lancaster University and offers full a

1.
SR Merchant Navy class
–
The SR Merchant Navy class is a class of air-smoothed 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotives designed for the Southern Railway by Oliver Bulleid. The Pacific design was chosen in preference to several proposed by Bulleid. The first members of the class were constructed during the Second World War, in addition the locomotives featured thermic syphons in their boilers and the controversial Bulleid chain-driven valve gear. The Merchant Navy class operated until the end of Southern steam in July 1967, a third of the class has survived and can be seen on heritage railways throughout Great Britain. The Southern Railway was the most financially successful of the Big Four, after the successful introduction of the SR Schools class in 1930, the railway had lagged behind the others in terms of modernising its ageing fleet of steam locomotives. In March 1938, the new General Manager Gilbert Szlumper authorised Oliver Bulleid, Maunsells replacement, the deteriorating international situation prior to the Second World War was an additional factor in this decision. However, both proposals for eight-coupled locomotives were resisted by the Southern Railways Chief Civil Engineer, so a new 4-6-2 Pacific design was settled upon instead, classifying a design as mixed traffic neatly circumvented this restriction. Most of the design for the Merchant Navy class was undertaken by the drawing office at Brighton works. This division of responsibility was possibly due to Bulleids wish to restrict knowledge of the new class to a number of personnel. The design incorporated a number of features, compared to then-current steam locomotive practice in Great Britain. Three 18 inches diameter cylinders drove the coupled axle. The inside cylinder was steeply inclined at 1,7.5 and it was originally intended to use a gear-driven valve gear, but space restrictions within the frames and wartime material shortages led Bulleid to design his novel chain-driven valve gear. This component was unique amongst British locomotive design practices and it later gained a bad reputation, because it could cause highly irregular valve events, a problem compounded by the fast-moving Bulleid steam reverser. The entire system was located in an oil bath, another unique design. The locomotives were equipped with the unusual 6 ft 2 in Bulleid Firth Brown driving wheels which were lighter and these proved to be successful and were later used on other Bulleid classes. The leading bogie was based upon that of the SR Lord Nelson class, although it had a 6 ft 3 in wheelbase as opposed to Maunsells 7 ft 6 in design, and featured 3 ft 1 in BFB wheels. A long coupled driving wheelbase was incorporated into the design, to keep the locomotives within the loading of the Southern Railways narrower bridges. The supporting rear trailing truck was a steel casting that gave the smoothest of rides

2.
United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state‍—‌the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government

3.
Merchant navy
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A merchant navy or merchant marine is the fleet of merchant vessels that are registered in a specific country. The following is a partial list of the merchant navies or merchant marines of various countries, in many countries the fleets proper name is simply the capitalized version of the common noun. The British Merchant Navy comprises the British merchant ships that transport cargo and people during time of peace and war. For much of its history, the merchant navy was the largest merchant fleet in the world, in 1939, the merchant navy was the largest in the world with 33% of total tonnage. By 2012, the merchant navy—still remaining one of the largest in the world—held only 3% of total tonnage, as of the year ending 2012, British Merchant Marine interests consists of 1,504 ships of 100 GRT or over. This includes ships either UK directly owned, parent owned or managed by a British company and this amounts to,59,413,000 GRT or alternatively 75,265,000 DWT. This is according to the maritime shipping statistics provided by the British government. British Shipping is represented nationally and globally by the UK Chamber of Shipping, canada, like several other Commonwealth nations, created its own merchant navy in a large-scale effort in World War II. Established in 1939, the Canadian Merchant Navy played a role in the Battle of the Atlantic bolstering the Allies merchant fleet due to high losses in the British Merchant Navy. Eventually thousands of Canadians served in the merchant navy aboard hundreds of Canadian merchant ships, notably the Park Ship, a school at St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia, trained Canadian merchant mariners. Manning pools, merchant navy barracks, were built in Canadian ports, the Greek maritime fleet is today engaged in commerce and transportation of goods and services universally. It consists of the merchant vessels owned by Greek civilians, flying either the Greek flag or a flag of convenience. Greece is a nation by tradition, as shipping is arguably the oldest form of occupation of the Greeks. Greece is also ranked in the top for all kinds of ships, including first for tankers, the birth of the modern Indian Merchant Navy occurred before independence from the United Kingdom, when in 1919 SS Loyalty sailed from India to Britain. Today, India ranks 15th in the world in terms of total DWT, India currently supplies around 12. 8% of officers and around 14. 5% of ratings to the world seafaring community. This is one of the highest of any country, in December 1939,3000 seafarers were employed and 186 merchant vessels were on the New Zealand Registry. Some foreign vessels were impressed, including the barque, Pamir. New Zealand, like several other Commonwealth nations, created a merchant navy, although some ships were involved in the Atlantic and North Pacific trade, mostly this involved domestic and South Pacific cargos

4.
International Maritime Organization
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The IMO was established in Geneva in 1948 and came into force ten years later, meeting for the first time in 1959. Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, the IMO has 172 Member States, IMO is governed by an assembly of members and is financially administered by a council of members elected from the assembly. The work of IMO is conducted through five committees and these are supported by technical subcommittees, other UN organisations may observe the proceedings of the IMO. Observer status is granted to qualified non-governmental organisations, IMO is supported by a permanent secretariat of employees who are representative of the organisations members. Hitherto such international conventions had been initiated piecemeal, notably the Safety of Life at Sea Convention, the first meetings of the newly formed IMCO were held in London in 1959. More recently SOLAS has been amended to bring a focus on maritime security through the International Ship. The IMO has also increased its focus on air emissions from ships, in January 1959, IMO began to maintain and promote the 1954 OILPOL Convention. Under the guidance of IMO, the convention was amended in 1962,1969, as oil trade and industry developed, many people in the industry began to recognize a need for further improvements in regards to oil pollution prevention at sea. Among other things, the accident forced the industry and public to question the efficacy of standing regulations. This incident prompted a series of new conventions, IMO held an emergency session of its Council to deal with the need to readdress regulations pertaining to maritime pollution. In 1969, the IMO Assembly decided to host a gathering in 1973 dedicated to this issue. The goal at hand was to develop an international agreement for controlling general environmental contamination by ships out at sea. During the next few years IMO brought to the forefront a series of measures designed to prevent large ship accidents and it also detailed how to deal with the environmental threat caused by routine ship duties such as the cleaning of oil cargo tanks or the disposal of engine room wastes. Interestingly enough in terms of tonnage the afore-mentioned was a problem than accidental pollution. The most significant thing to come out of conference was the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships,1973. It covers not only accidental and operational oil pollution but also different types of pollution by chemicals, goods in packaged form, sewage, garbage, the original MARPOL was signed on 17 February 1973, but did not come into force due to lack of ratifications. The current convention is a combination of 1973 Convention and the 1978 Protocol and it entered into force on 2 October 1983. As of May 2013,152 states, representing 99.2 per cent of the worlds shipping tonnage, are involved in the convention, in 1983 the IMO established the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden

International Maritime Organization
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IMO headquarters in London
International Maritime Organization
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International Maritime Organization

5.
Royal Fleet Auxiliary
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The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is a civilian-manned fleet owned by the United Kingdoms Ministry of Defence, whose purpose is to support the Royal Navy. The RFA enables ships of the Royal Navy to maintain operations around the world and its primary role is to supply the Royal Navy with fuel, ammunition and supplies, normally by replenishment at sea. It also transports Army and Royal Marine personnel, as well as supporting training exercises, the RFA counts an Aviation Training ship/Hospital Ship and landing vessels amongst its assets. Royal Navy personnel are also needed to operate weapons, such as the Phalanx. Since the Royal Navy of that era possessed the largest network of bases around the world of any fleet, World War II also saw naval ships staying at sea for much longer periods than had been the case since the days of sail. Techniques of Replenishment at Sea were developed, the auxiliary fleet comprised a diverse collection, with not only RFA ships, but also commissioned warships and merchantmen as well. The need for the fleet to be maintained was unambiguously demonstrated by World War II, after 1945, the RFA became the Royal Navys main source of support in the many conflicts that the Navy was involved in. The RFA performed important service to the Far East Fleet off Korea from 1950 until 1953, during the extended operations of the Konfrontasi in the 1960s, the RFA was also heavily involved. As the network of British bases overseas shrank during the end of the Empire, the Navy increasingly relied on the RFA to supply its ships during routine deployments. The RFA played an important role in the largest naval war since 1945, the Falklands War in 1982, and also the Gulf War, Kosovo War, Afghanistan Campaign and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In July 2008, the RFA was presented with a Queens Colour, Ships in RFA service carry the ship prefix RFA, standing for Royal Fleet Auxiliary, and fly the Blue Ensign defaced with an upright gold killick anchor. All Royal Fleet Auxiliaries are built and maintained to Lloyds Register, the most important role provided by the RFA is replenishment at sea, therefore the mainstay of the current RFA fleet are the replenishment ships. The Wave-class and Rover-class are Fleet Tankers, which primarily provide under way refuelling to Royal Navy ships, the remaining Rover-class will be replaced by the new Tide-class Fast Fleet Tankers that were ordered in February 2012. The four new tankers have been ordered from DSME, South Korea with design support from Britains BMT Defence Services, the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review has confirmed that three Fleet Solid Support Ships will be built and bidding for the contract will start in late 2016. Fort Victoria is a replenishment ship, capable of providing under way refuelling. The older Fort Rosalie-class ships provide only dry cargoes, the Wave-class, Fort Victoria and the Fort Rosalie-class have generous aviation facilities, providing aviation support and training facilities and significant vertical replenishment capabilities. They are capable of operating and supporting several Merlin and Lynx Wildcat helicopters, the presence of aviation facilities on RFA ships allows for them to be used as force multipliers for the task groups they support in line with Royal Navy doctrine. The RFA is tasked with the role of supporting Royal Navy amphibious operations through ts three Bay-class dock landing ships, typically one Bay-class is also assigned as a permanent mothership for Royal Navy mine countermeasures vessels in the Persian Gulf

6.
Maritime and Coastguard Agency
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It is also responsible for land based search and rescue helicopter operations from 2015. The organisation is led by Sir Alan Massey, its Chief Executive, the MCA are chiefly responsible for the syllabus and national training standards issued by the Merchant Navy Training Board. The MCA has now established an Automatic Identification System network around the UK coast and its motto is Safer Lives, Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas. Royal National Lifeboat Institution Her Majestys Coastguard Code of safe working practices British Merchant Navy Merchant Navy Official website

Maritime and Coastguard Agency
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Maritime and Coastguard Agency

7.
The Marine Society
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For the Marine Societeit of Surabaya, Indonesia see, Military Canteen of Royal Netherlands Navy The Marine Society was a British charity, the worlds first established for seafarers. In 1756, at the beginning of the Seven Years War against France, Austria, ten men were duly clothed and delivered to ships of the King’s navy. In this small way began the work of The Marine Society, the main object of the charity when founded was sending unemployed or orphaned teenagers to sea as officers servants. The Royal Navy was estimated to need about 4,500 boys as servants during wartime, approximately a thousand were young gentlemen intending to be officers, and many of the remainder were supplied by the Society. As the boys were for the most part from non-seafaring families the Society probably provided an increase of several thousand to the pool of naval recruitment. The Society also provided over ten thousand naval recruits with free clothing, by 1763, the Society had recruited over 10,000 men and boys, in 1772, such was its perceived importance in the life of the nation, it was incorporated in an Act of Parliament. The relative professionalism of these men, the great British naval hero readily acknowledged, played a part in his victories. Hanway now formulated plans for transferring boys to the merchant service on their discharge from ships and from then on. Early reports from commanding officers had indicated that the number of desertions might be reduced if boys equipped by the Society were given a period of training before being sent to sea. The Society thus became the first organisation in the world to pioneer nautical training for boys in its special school ship which was moored in the Thames between Deptford and Greenwich and this example was followed in the nineteenth century by many other organisations in ports round the British Isles. From 1799 until 1918 The Admiralty provided a succession of training ships, in 1922 the Society commissioned HMS Hermione as the third Warspite. However the outbreak of the world war forced the Society to evacuate the ship owing to the probability of air attack. From 1756 to 1940 the Society recruited over 110,000 men and boys for the Royal Navy, records show that from 1756 to 1815 the charity provided some twelve percent of naval manpower, all the more valuable to the nation since each one was a volunteer. After the Second World War, the Society concluded that there were by then sufficient facilities for sea-training provided by national authorities, in this way The Marine Society pioneered what was subsequently accepted as standard practice for the entry of officers into the Merchant Navy. Between 1940 and 1987, as the Society’s reserves increased, was not only able to help individual seafarers, the merger of the Seafarers Education Service with The Marine Society at this time was hugely significant and helped to ensure the continued relevance of both operations. Both the College of the Sea and Seafarers Libraries continue to flourish today, the new charity thereby created became known as The Marine Society & Sea Cadets. As the UK’s largest non-profit maritime organisation, the Marine Society & Sea Cadets is the brand for the two distinct organisations, The Marine Society, and the Sea Cadets. It is based in a Victorian building close to the river Thames, the Marine Society continues as a charity involved in lifelong learning for maritime professionals

The Marine Society
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Plaque marking site of the foundation of The Marine Society

8.
Red Ensign
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The Red Ensign or Red Duster is the civil ensign of the United Kingdom. It is one of the British ensigns, and it is used either plain and it is the flag flown by British Merchant ships since 1707. Prior to 1707 an English red ensign and a Scottish red ensign were flown by the English and Scottish navies respectively. The precise date of the first appearance of these earlier red ensigns is not known, in 1674, a Royal Proclamation of Charles II confirmed that the Red Ensign was the appropriate flag to be worn by English merchant ships. The wording of the 1674 proclamation indicates that the flag was customarily being used by English merchantmen before that date, at this time, the ensign displayed the English Cross of St George in the canton. It is probable that the cross-saltire was adopted by the Scots as an ensign at a very early period. The earliest Scottish records were lost at sea in the ship that was sent to them to that country, whence they had been carried off, with the Stone of Destiny. Prior to 1707 the Scottish Red Ensign was flown by ships of the Royal Scots Navy and this resulted in a new red ensign which placed the first Union Flag in the first quarter. The new design of the Red Ensign was proclaimed by Queen Anne and this was the flag flown by ships of the thirteen American colonies before the American Revolution and was a precursor to the colonies Grand Union Flag. In 1801, with another Act of Union, Ireland joined with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the St Patricks Cross was added to the Union Flag and, accordingly, to the first quarters of the British ensigns. In 1854, the Merchant Shipping Act included a provision that the Red Ensign was the appropriate flag for a British merchantman. This provision was repeated in successive British shipping legislation, the white ensign and the blue ensign were also used by the Royal Navy. Many in the Admiralty felt that the Royal Navys use of three separate ensigns was outdated and confusing, many also felt that steam merchantmen should be clearly distinguishable from warships. In July 1864, an order-in-council provided that the White Ensign was the ensign of the Royal Naval Service, the Blue Ensign was designated as the proper national colours for ships commanded by an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve, and as national colours for ships in government service. The Red Ensign was assigned to British merchantmen, most British colonies needed to use the blue ensign due to the fact that most had government vessels, some colonies, such as South Australia, had warships. As a result, the Blue Ensign was used throughout the Empire and thus became the model for the used by a number of colonies. At the same time, the red ensign was used by merchantmen of those colonies which obtained an Admiralty warrant. Not all colonies obtained an Admiralty warrant, however, the ones that did tended to be larger and those areas that did not have an Admiralty warrant used the plain Red Ensign, although unofficial local versions of the Red Ensign were used

Red Ensign
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WW2 poster
Red Ensign
Red Ensign
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The Red Ensign of the United Kingdom in use in London
Red Ensign
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The British Red Ensign being paraded alongside the Australian Red Ensign during the 2007 Anzac Day celebrations in Brisbane, Australia.

9.
Maritime history of the United Kingdom
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Until the advent of air transport and the creation of the Channel Tunnel, marine transport was the only way of reaching the British Isles. For this reason, maritime trade and naval power have always had great importance, prior to the Acts of Union,1707, the maritime history of the British Isles was largely dominated by that of England. The main British export in the 18th century was corn, Lloyds List was established in 1734 and Lloyds Register in 1764/5. The Marine Society was set up in 1756 with the aim of sending boys to sea. Steam technology was first applied to boats in the 1770s but sailing ships continued to be developed, in 1794 an experimental steam powered ship called the Kent was built which showed designers the way forward. Nathanial Symonds demonstrated a boat in 1729. Towards the end of the century, the Napoleonic Wars started with Napoleon, later crowned as French Emperor, in 1801 a steamship called the Charlotte Dundas ran trials on a canal near Glasgow, towing barges. In 1815 Pierre Andriel crossed the English Channel aboard the steamship Élise, by the mid-century steamboats were a common sight on British rivers and canals. Regular steamship sailings across the Atlantic started in the 1830s, Shipbuilders began using iron instead of wood as the ships could be made larger with more cargo space. Ships also began to be fitted with engines and paddle wheels. From the 1840s screw propellers replaced paddles, in the 1870s new more efficient engines were introduced so that sailing ships began to be phased out. From the 1880s steel began to replace iron for the hulls, steamships gradually replaced sailing ships for commercial shipping during the 19th century, particularly after more efficient engine designs were developed in the later part of the period. The Battle of Navarino in 1827 was the last to be fought by the Royal Navy entirely with sailing ships, by the end of the century submarine design had progressed sufficiently to be useful, as had the design of torpedoes. At the start of the century 25% of the trade was through British ports. Trans-oceanic travel was important at the start of the century with transatlantic liners competing for the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing, a significant event was the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. This led to the Global Maritime Distress Safety System and to the Iceberg Patrol, the rise of air travel led to a decrease in ocean travel but then, towards the end of the century, cruise ships became important again. During the 20th century new types of cargo ships appeared - the container ship, the oil tanker, specialised ports for handling these were also developed. Most warships used steam propulsion until the advent of the gas turbine in the mid part of the period, steamships were superseded by diesel-driven cargo ships in the second half of the century

Maritime history of the United Kingdom
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RMS Titanic, days before sinking.
Maritime history of the United Kingdom
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The Battle of Trafalgar.
Maritime history of the United Kingdom
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HMS Dreadnought
Maritime history of the United Kingdom
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HMS Ark Royal in 1976.

10.
Merchant vessel
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A merchant vessel or trading vessel is a boat or ship that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This excludes pleasure craft that do not carry passengers for hire, most countries of the world operate fleets of merchant ships. However, due to the costs of operations, today these fleets are in many cases sailing under the flags of nations that specialize in providing manpower. Such flags are known as flags of convenience, currently, Liberia and Panama are particularly favoured. Ownership of the vessels can be by any country, however, the Greek-owned fleet is the largest in the world. Today, the Greek fleet accounts for some 16 per cent of the world’s tonnage, during wars, merchant ships may be used as auxiliaries to the navies of their respective countries, and are called upon to deliver military personnel and materiel. The term commercial vessel is defined by the United States Coast Guard as any vessel engaged in trade or that carries passengers for hire. In English, Merchant Navy without further clarification is used to refer to the British Merchant Navy, general cargo ships include multi-purpose and project vessels and roll-on/roll-off cargo. A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, thousands of cargo carriers ply the worlds seas and oceans each year, they handle the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usually designed for the task, often being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload. Dry cargo ships today are mainly bulk carriers and container ships, bulk carriers or bulkers are used for the transportation of homogeneous cargo such as coal, rubber, copra, tin, and wheat. Container ships are used for the carriage of miscellaneous goods, a bulk carrier is an ocean-going vessel used to transport bulk cargo items such as iron ore, bauxite, coal, cement, grain and similar cargo. Bulk carriers can be recognized by large box-like hatches on deck, the dimensions of bulk carriers are often determined by the ports and sea routes that they need to serve, and by the maximum width of the Panama Canal. Most lakes are too small to accommodate bulk carriers, but a large fleet of lake freighters has been plying the Great Lakes, container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial freight transport. A tanker is a designed to transport liquids in bulk. Tankers can range in size from several hundred tons, designed to serve small harbours and coastal settlements, to several hundred thousand tons, gas Carriers such as LNG carriers as they are typically known, are a relatively rare tanker designed to carry liquefied natural gas. It has a deadweight of 565 thousand metric tons and length of about 458 meters, the use of such large ships is in fact very unprofitable, due to the inability to operate them at full cargo capacity, hence, the production of supertankers has currently ceased

11.
Ship transport
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Ship transport is watercraft carrying people or goods. Freight transport has been achieved widely by sea throughout recorded history, although the importance of sea travel for passengers has decreased due to aviation, it is effective for short trips and pleasure cruises. Transport by water is cheaper than transport by air, despite fluctuating exchange rates, ship transport can be realized over any distance by boat, ship, sailboat or barge, over oceans and lakes, through canals or along rivers. Virtually any material can be moved by water, however, water transport becomes impractical when material delivery is highly time-critical such as types of perishable produce. Containerization revolutionized ship transport starting in the 1970s, general cargo includes goods packaged in boxes, cases, pallets, and barrels. When a cargo is carried in more than one mode, it is intermodal or co-modal, a nations shipping fleet consists of the ships operated by civilian crews to transport passengers or cargo from one place to another. Ores, Coal, and grains can travel along the rivers of the American midwest to Pittsburgh, professional mariners are merchant seaman, merchant sailor, and merchant mariner, or simply seaman, sailor, or mariners. The terms seaman or sailor may refer to a member of a countrys navy, according to the 2005 CIA World Factbook, the total number of merchant ships of at least 1,000 gross register tons in the world was 30,936. In 2010, it was 38,988, an increase of 26%, statistics for individual countries are available at the list of merchant navy capacity by country. A ships complement can be divided into four categories, the department, the engineering department, the stewards department. Officer positions in the department include but not limited to, Master and his Chief, Second. The official classifications for unlicensed members of the department are Able Seaman. Their time on board is spent learning the operations and tasks of life on a merchant vessel. A ships engineering department consists of the members of a crew that operate and maintain the propulsion. Marine Engineering staff also deal with the Hotel facilities on board, notably the sewage, lighting, air conditioning, on LPG and LNG tankers however, a cargo engineer works with the deck department during cargo operations, as well as being a watchkeeping engineer. Other possible positions include Motorman, Machinist, Electrician, Refrigeration Engineer, engine Cadets are trainee engineers who are completing sea time necessary before they can obtain a watchkeeping license. A typical Stewards department for a ship would be composed of a Chief Steward, a Chief Cook. All three positions are filled by unlicensed personnel

12.
Merchant marine
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A merchant navy or merchant marine is the fleet of merchant vessels that are registered in a specific country. The following is a partial list of the merchant navies or merchant marines of various countries, in many countries the fleets proper name is simply the capitalized version of the common noun. The British Merchant Navy comprises the British merchant ships that transport cargo and people during time of peace and war. For much of its history, the merchant navy was the largest merchant fleet in the world, in 1939, the merchant navy was the largest in the world with 33% of total tonnage. By 2012, the merchant navy—still remaining one of the largest in the world—held only 3% of total tonnage, as of the year ending 2012, British Merchant Marine interests consists of 1,504 ships of 100 GRT or over. This includes ships either UK directly owned, parent owned or managed by a British company and this amounts to,59,413,000 GRT or alternatively 75,265,000 DWT. This is according to the maritime shipping statistics provided by the British government. British Shipping is represented nationally and globally by the UK Chamber of Shipping, canada, like several other Commonwealth nations, created its own merchant navy in a large-scale effort in World War II. Established in 1939, the Canadian Merchant Navy played a role in the Battle of the Atlantic bolstering the Allies merchant fleet due to high losses in the British Merchant Navy. Eventually thousands of Canadians served in the merchant navy aboard hundreds of Canadian merchant ships, notably the Park Ship, a school at St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia, trained Canadian merchant mariners. Manning pools, merchant navy barracks, were built in Canadian ports, the Greek maritime fleet is today engaged in commerce and transportation of goods and services universally. It consists of the merchant vessels owned by Greek civilians, flying either the Greek flag or a flag of convenience. Greece is a nation by tradition, as shipping is arguably the oldest form of occupation of the Greeks. Greece is also ranked in the top for all kinds of ships, including first for tankers, the birth of the modern Indian Merchant Navy occurred before independence from the United Kingdom, when in 1919 SS Loyalty sailed from India to Britain. Today, India ranks 15th in the world in terms of total DWT, India currently supplies around 12. 8% of officers and around 14. 5% of ratings to the world seafaring community. This is one of the highest of any country, in December 1939,3000 seafarers were employed and 186 merchant vessels were on the New Zealand Registry. Some foreign vessels were impressed, including the barque, Pamir. New Zealand, like several other Commonwealth nations, created a merchant navy, although some ships were involved in the Atlantic and North Pacific trade, mostly this involved domestic and South Pacific cargos

13.
King George V
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George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. He was the son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. From the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession behind his father and his own brother, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence. From 1877 to 1891, George served in the Royal Navy, on the death of his grandmother in 1901, Georges father became King-Emperor of the British Empire, and George was created Prince of Wales. He succeeded his father in 1910 and he was the only Emperor of India to be present at his own Delhi Durbar. His reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, the Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, in 1924 he appointed the first Labour ministry and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognised the dominions of the Empire as separate, independent states within the Commonwealth of Nations. He had health problems throughout much of his reign and at his death was succeeded by his eldest son. George was born on 3 June 1865, in Marlborough House and he was the second son of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Albert Edward and Alexandra. His father was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and he was baptised at Windsor Castle on 7 July 1865 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Longley. As a younger son of the Prince of Wales, there was expectation that George would become king. He was third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother, George was only 17 months younger than Albert Victor, and the two princes were educated together. John Neale Dalton was appointed as their tutor in 1871, neither Albert Victor nor George excelled intellectually. For three years from 1879, the brothers served on HMS Bacchante, accompanied by Dalton. They toured the colonies of the British Empire in the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia, and visited Norfolk, Virginia, as well as South America, the Mediterranean, Egypt, Dalton wrote an account of their journey entitled The Cruise of HMS Bacchante. Between Melbourne and Sydney, Dalton recorded a sighting of the Flying Dutchman, after Lausanne, the brothers were separated, Albert Victor attended Trinity College, Cambridge, while George continued in the Royal Navy. He travelled the world, visiting many areas of the British Empire, during his naval career he commanded Torpedo Boat 79 in home waters then HMS Thrush on the North America station, before his last active service in command of HMS Melampus in 1891–92. From then on, his rank was largely honorary

King George V
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Coronation portrait by Sir Luke Fildes, 1911
King George V
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George as a young boy, 1870
King George V
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George, 1893
King George V
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York Cottage at Sandringham House: George and his wife lived here from 1893 to 1926.

14.
First World War
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany

15.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive

16.
Piracy
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Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship- or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable items or properties. Those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates, the earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilizations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, a land-based parallel is the ambushing of travelers by bandits and brigands in highways and mountain passes. While the term can include acts committed in the air, on land, or in major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against people traveling on the vessel as the perpetrator. Piracy or pirating is the name of a crime under customary international law. They also use larger vessels, known as ships, to supply the smaller motorboats. The international community is facing challenges in bringing modern pirates to justice. In the 2000s, a number of nations have used their naval forces to protect ships from pirate attacks. The English pirate is derived from the Latin term pirata and that from Greek πειρατής, brigand, in turn from πειράομαι, I attempt, from πεῖρα, attempt, the meaning of the Greek word peiratēs literally is one who attacks. The word is cognate to peril. The term is first attested to c, spelling was not standardised until the eighteenth century, and spellings such as pirrot, pyrate and pyrat were used until this period. It may be reasonable to assume that piracy has existed for as long as the oceans were plied for commerce, the earliest documented instances of piracy are the exploits of the Sea Peoples who threatened the ships sailing in the Aegean and Mediterranean waters in the 14th century BC. In classical antiquity, the Phoenicians, Illyrians and Tyrrhenians were known as pirates, the ancient Greeks condoned piracy as a viable profession, it apparently was widespread and regarded as an entirely honourable way of making a living. References are made to its perfectly normal occurrence many texts including in Homers Iliad and Odyssey, by the era of Classical Greece, piracy was looked upon as a disgrace to have as a profession. In the 3rd century BC, pirate attacks on Olympos brought impoverishment, among some of the most famous ancient pirateering peoples were the Illyrians, a people populating the western Balkan peninsula. Constantly raiding the Adriatic Sea, the Illyrians caused many conflicts with the Roman Republic and it was not until 229 BC when the Romans finally decisively beat the Illyrian fleets that their threat was ended

Piracy
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French pirate Jacques de Sores looting and burning Havana in 1555
Piracy
Piracy
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Mosaic of a Roman trireme in Tunisia
Piracy
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A fleet of Vikings, painted mid-12th century

17.
Privateer
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A privateer was a private person or ship that engaged in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law, a percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission. Since robbery under arms was common to trade, all merchant ships were already armed. During war, naval resources were auxiliary to operations on land so privateering was a way of subsidizing state power by mobilizing armed ships, the letter of marque of a privateer would typically limit activity to one particular ship, and specified officers. Typically, the owners or captain would be required to post a performance bond, in the United Kingdom, letters of marque were revoked for various offences. Some crews were treated as harshly as naval crews of the time, some crews were made up of professional merchant seamen, others of pirates, debtors, and convicts. Some privateers ended up becoming pirates, not just in the eyes of their enemies, william Kidd, for instance, began as a legitimate British privateer but was later hanged for piracy. The investors would arm the vessels and recruit large crews, much larger than a merchantman or a vessel would carry. Privateers generally cruised independently, but it was not unknown for them to form squadrons, a number of privateers were part of the English fleet that opposed the Spanish Armada in 1588. Privateers generally avoided encounters with warships, as such encounters would be at best unprofitable, for instance, in 1815 Chasseur encountered HMS St Lawrence, herself a former American privateer, mistaking her for a merchantman until too late, in this instance, however, the privateer prevailed. The United States used mixed squadrons of frigates and privateers in the American Revolutionary War, the practice dated to at least the 13th century but the word itself was coined sometime in the mid-17th century. England, and later the United Kingdom, used privateers to great effect and these privately owned merchant ships, licensed by the crown, could legitimately take vessels that were deemed pirates. The increase in competition for crews on armed merchant vessels and privateers was due, in a large part, because of the chance for a considerable payoff. Whereas a seaman who shipped on a vessel was paid a wage and provided with victuals. This proved to be a far more attractive prospect and privateering flourished as a result, during Queen Elizabeths reign, she encouraged the development of this supplementary navy. Over the course of her rule, she had allowed Anglo-Spanish relations to deteriorate to the point where one could argue that a war with the Spanish was inevitable. By using privateers, if the Spanish were to take offense at the plundering of their ships, some of the most famous privateers that later fought in the Anglo-Spanish War included the Sea Dogs. In the late 16th century, English ships cruised in the Caribbean and off the coast of Spain, at this early stage the idea of a regular navy was not present, so there is little to distinguish the activity of English privateers from regular naval warfare

18.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety

19.
Far East
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The Far East is an alternate geographical term in English, that usually refers to East Asia, the Russian Far East, and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons, since the 1960s, East Asia has become the most common term for the region in international mass media outlets. Far East is often deprecated as archaic and Eurocentric, along with the terms Near East and Middle East. The term Far East came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 12th century, for the same reason, Chinese people in the 19th and early 20th centuries called Western countries Tàixī —i. e. anything further west than the Arab world. Prior to the era, Far East referred to anything further east than the Middle East. In the 16th century, King John III of Portugal called India a rich, the term was popularized during the period of the British Empire as a blanket term for lands to the east of British India. Many European languages have terms, such as the French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Polish, Norwegian. Significantly, the term evokes cultural as well as separation, the Far East is not just geographically distant. It never refers, for instance, to the culturally Western nations of Australia and New Zealand and this combination of cultural and geographic subjectivity was well illustrated in 1939 by Robert Menzies, a Prime Minister of Australia. Reflecting on his countrys geopolitical concerns with the onset of war, Menzies commented that, what Great Britain calls the Far East is to us the Near North. Far East in its sense is comparable to terms such as the Orient, which means East. Southeast Asia, the Russian Far East, and occasionally the Indian Subcontinent might be included in the Far East to some extent, for the people who live in that part of the world, however, it is neither East nor West and certainly not Far. A more generally acceptable term for the area is East Asia, furthermore, the United Kingdom and United States have historically used Far East for several military units and commands in the region, British Far East Command RAF Far East Air Force U. S. Far East Air Force The U. S. Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations, Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western

Far East
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Location of the Far East, geographically defined

20.
Sugar
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Sugar is the generic name for sweet, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. There are various types of derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose, fructose, the table sugar or granulated sugar most customarily used as food is sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. Sugar is used in prepared foods and it is added to some foods, in the body, sucrose is hydrolysed into the simple sugars fructose and glucose. Other disaccharides include maltose from malted grain, and lactose from milk, longer chains of sugars are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Some other chemical substances, such as glycerol may also have a sweet taste, low-calorie food substitutes for sugar, described as artificial sweeteners, include aspartame and sucralose, a chlorinated derivative of sucrose. Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants and are present in sufficient concentrations for efficient commercial extraction in sugarcane, the world production of sugar in 2011 was about 168 million tonnes. The average person consumes about 24 kilograms of sugar each year, equivalent to over 260 food calories per person, since the latter part of the twentieth century, it has been questioned whether a diet high in sugars, especially refined sugars, is good for human health. Sugar has been linked to obesity, and suspected of, or fully implicated as a cause in the occurrence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, macular degeneration, the etymology reflects the spread of the commodity. The English word sugar ultimately originates from the Sanskrit शर्करा, via Arabic سكر as granular or candied sugar, the contemporary Italian word is zucchero, whereas the Spanish and Portuguese words, azúcar and açúcar, respectively, have kept a trace of the Arabic definite article. The Old French word is zuchre and the contemporary French, sucre, the earliest Greek word attested is σάκχαρις. The English word jaggery, a brown sugar made from date palm sap or sugarcane juice, has a similar etymological origin – Portuguese jagara from the Sanskrit शर्करा. Sugar has been produced in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times and it was not plentiful or cheap in early times and honey was more often used for sweetening in most parts of the world. Originally, people chewed raw sugarcane to extract its sweetness, sugarcane was a native of tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia. Different species seem to have originated from different locations with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. edule, one of the earliest historical references to sugarcane is in Chinese manuscripts dating back to 8th century BC that state that the use of sugarcane originated in India. Sugar was found in Europe by the 1st century AD, but only as an imported medicine and it is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut, sugar is used only for medical purposes. Sugar remained relatively unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store, crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, around the 5th century AD

21.
Opium Wars
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The Opium Wars were two wars in the mid-19th century involving Anglo-Chinese disputes over British trade in China and Chinas sovereignty. The disputes included the First Opium War and the Second Opium War, the wars and events between them weakened the Qing dynasty and forced China to trade with the rest of the world. The First Opium War, during 1839–1842, was concluded by the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, the treaty ceded the Hong Kong island to the United Kingdom in perpetuity, and it established five treaty ports at Shanghai, Canton, Ningpo, Fuchow, and Amoy. Another treaty the next year gave most favored nation status to the United Kingdom, then France secured concessions on the same terms as the British, in treaties of 1843 and 1844. The war is known as the Arrow War, referring to the name of a vessel at the starting point of the conflict. The Arrow War resulted in a group of treaty ports being set up, eventually more than 80 treaty ports were established in China. All foreign traders gained rights to travel within China

Opium Wars
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British bombardment of Canton from the surrounding heights, May 1841
Opium Wars
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A depiction of the 1860 Battle of Taku Forts

22.
Opium
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Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, the word meconium historically referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies. The production of opium has not changed since ancient times, through selective breeding of the Papaver somniferum plant, the content of the phenanthrene alkaloids morphine, codeine, and to a lesser extent thebaine has been greatly increased. For the illegal trade, the morphine is extracted from the opium. It is then converted to heroin which is two to four times as potent, and increases the value by two to four times, the reduced weight and bulk make it easier to smuggle. Evidence from ancient Greece indicate that opium was consumed in several ways, including inhalation of vapors, suppositories, medical poultices, Opium is mentioned in the most important medical texts of the ancient world, including the Ebers Papyrus and the writings of Dioscorides, Galen, and Avicenna. Widespread medical use of unprocessed opium continued through the American Civil War before giving way to morphine and its successors, Opium has been actively collected since prehistoric times. Though western scholars typically estimate this to be around 1500 BCE, Indian scholars maintain that the verses and the history contained in them have been orally transmitted thousands of years before. A common name for males in Afghanistan is Redey, which in Pashto means poppy and this term may be derived from the Sanskrit words rddhi and hrdya, which mean magical, a type of medicinal plant, and heart-pleasing, respectively. The upper Asian belt of Afghanistan, Pakistan, northern India, numerous finds of P. somniferum or P. setigerum from Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have also been reported. The first known cultivation of poppies was in Mesopotamia, approximately 3400 BCE, by Sumerians, who called the plant hul gil. Tablets found at Nippur, a Sumerian spiritual center south of Baghdad, described the collection of juice in the morning. Opium production continued under the Babylonians and Egyptians, Opium was used with poison hemlock to put people quickly and painlessly to death, but it was also used in medicine. The Ebers Papyrus, c. 1500 BCE, describes a way to stop a child using grains of the poppy plant strained to a pulp. Spongia somnifera, sponges soaked in opium, were used during surgery, the Egyptians cultivated opium thebaicum in famous poppy fields around 1300 BCE. Opium was traded from Egypt by the Phoenicians and Minoans to destinations around the Mediterranean Sea, including Greece, Carthage, and Europe. By 1100 BCE, opium was cultivated on Cyprus, where surgical-quality knives were used to score the poppy pods, and opium was cultivated, traded, Opium was also mentioned after the Persian conquest of Assyria and Babylonian lands in the 6th century BCE. From the earliest finds, opium has appeared to have ritual significance, and anthropologists have speculated ancient priests may have used the drug as a proof of healing power

23.
Spices
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A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, sometimes, spices may be ground into a powder for convenience. Spices are sometimes used in medicine, religious rituals, cosmetics or perfume production, the spice trade developed throughout South Asia and Middle East by at least 2000 BCE with cinnamon and black pepper, and in East Asia with herbs and pepper. The Egyptians used herbs for mummification and their demand for exotic spices and herbs helped stimulate world trade. The word spice comes from the Old French word espice, which became epice, and which came from the Latin root spec, by 1000 BCE, medical systems based upon herbs could be found in China, Korea, and India. Early uses were connected with magic, medicine, religion, tradition, archaeological excavations have uncovered clove burnt onto the floor of a kitchen, dated to 1700 BCE, at the Mesopotamian site of Terqa, in modern-day Syria. The ancient Indian epic Ramayana mentions cloves, the Romans had cloves in the 1st century CE, as Pliny the Elder wrote about them. In the story of Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers to spice merchants, in the biblical poem Song of Solomon, the male speaker compares his beloved to many forms of spices. The earliest written records of spices come from ancient Egyptian, Chinese, the Ebers Papyrus from Early Egyptians that dates from 1550 B. C. E. Describes some eight hundred different medicinal remedies and numerous medicinal procedures, historians believe that nutmeg, which originates from the Banda Islands in Southeast Asia, was introduced to Europe in the 6th century BCE. Indonesian merchants traveled around China, India, the Middle East, Arab merchants facilitated the routes through the Middle East and India. This resulted in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria being the trading center for spices. The most important discovery prior to the European spice trade were the monsoon winds, sailing from Eastern spice cultivators to Western European consumers gradually replaced the land-locked spice routes once facilitated by the Middle East Arab caravans. Spices were among the most demanded and expensive available in Europe in the Middle Ages. Given medieval medicines main theory of humorism, spices and herbs were indispensable to balance humors in food, in addition to being desired by those using medieval medicine, the European elite also craved spices in the Middle Ages. An example of the European aristocracys demand for spice comes from the King of Aragon and he was specifically looking for spices to put in wine, and was not alone among European monarchs at the time to have such a desire for spice. Spices were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them expensive, from the 8th until the 15th century, the Republic of Venice had the monopoly on spice trade with the Middle East, and along with it the neighboring Italian city-states. The trade made the region rich and it has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the Late Middle Ages

Spices
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A spice shop selling a variety of spices in Iran
Spices
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A group of Indian spices and herbs in bowls
Spices
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An assortment of spices used in Indian cuisine
Spices
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Spice market, Marakesh

24.
Tea
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Tea is an aromatic beverage commonly prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to Asia. After water, it is the most widely consumed drink in the world, Tea originated in Southwest China, where it was used as a medicinal drink. It was popularized as a drink during the Chinese Tang dynasty. Portuguese priests and merchants introduced it to Europe during the 16th century, during the 17th century, drinking tea became fashionable among Britons, who started large-scale production and commercialization of the plant in India to bypass the Chinese monopoly. The term herbal tea usually refers to infusions of fruit or herbs made without the tea plant, such as steeps of rosehip, chamomile and these are sometimes called tisanes or herbal infusions to prevent confusion with tea made from the tea plant. The tea industry often uses the term fruit tea to refer to what are in fact fruit-flavored black teas. The Chinese character for tea is 茶, originally written with a stroke as 荼. The word is pronounced differently in the different varieties of Chinese, such as chá in Mandarin, zo and dzo in Wu Chinese, there were other ancient words for tea, though ming is the only other one still in common use. Most Chinese languages, such as Mandarin and Cantonese, pronounce it along the lines of cha and these two pronunciations have made their separate ways into other languages around the world. Starting in the seventeen century, the Dutch played a dominant role in the early European tea trade via the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch borrowed the word for tea from Min Chinese, either through trade directly from Fujian or Formosa where they had established a port, or from Malay traders in Bantam, Java. The Dutch then introduced to other European languages this Min pronunciation for tea, including English tea, French thé, Spanish té and this pronunciation is also the most common form worldwide. The Portuguese adopted the Cantonese pronunciation chá, and spread it to India, the Korean and Japanese pronunciations of cha were borrowed into Korean and Japanese during earlier periods of Chinese history. A third form, the increasingly widespread chai, came from Persian چای chay, both the châ and chây forms are found in Persian dictionaries. English has all three forms, cha or char, attested from the 16th century, tea, from the 17th, however, the form chai refers specifically to a black tea mixed with honey, spices and milk in contemporary English. Tea plants are native to East Asia, and probably originated around the points of the lands of north Burma. Tea drinking may have begun in the Yunnan region during the Shang Dynasty in China, Chinese legends attribute the invention of tea to Shennong in 2737 BC, although evidence suggests that tea drinking may have been introduced from the southwest of China. The earliest written records of tea come from China, in the Chronicles of Huayang, it was recorded that the Ba people in Sichuan presented tu to the Zhou king

25.
Cutty Sark
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Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. She continued as a ship until purchased in 1922 by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, by 1954, she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display. Cutty Sark is listed by National Historic Ships as part of the National Historic Fleet, the ship has been damaged by fire twice in recent years, first on 21 May 2007 while undergoing conservation. She was restored and was reopened to the public on 25 April 2012, on 19 October 2014 she was damaged in a smaller fire. Cutty Sark was ordered by shipping magnate John Willis, who operated a company founded by his father. The company had a fleet of clippers and regularly took part in the tea trade from China to Britain. In 1868 the brand new Aberdeen built clipper Thermopylae set a time of 61 days port to port on her maiden voyage from London to Melbourne. It is uncertain how the shape for Cutty Sark was chosen. Willis chose Hercules Linton to design and build the ship but Willis already possessed another ship, The Tweed, which he considered to have exceptional performance. The Tweed was a designed by Oliver Lang based on the lines of an old French frigate. She and a ship were purchased by Willis, who promptly sold the second ship plus engines from The Tweed for more than he paid for both. The Tweed was then lengthened and operated as a fast sailing vessel, Willis also commissioned two all-iron clippers with designs based upon The Tweed, Halloween and Blackadder. Linton was taken to view The Tweed in dry dock, Willis considered that The Tweeds bow shape was responsible for its notable performance, and this form seems to have been adopted for Cutty Sark. Linton, however, felt that the stern was too barrel shaped, the broader stern increased the buoyancy of the ships stern, making it lift more in heavy seas so it was less likely that waves would break over the stern, and over the helmsman at the wheel. The square bilge was carried forward through the centre of the ship, in the matter of masts Cutty Sark also followed the design of The Tweed, with similar good rake and with the foremast on both ships being placed further aft than was usual. A contract for Cutty Sarks construction was signed on 1 February 1869 with the firm of Scott & Linton and their shipyard was at Dumbarton on the River Leven on a site previously occupied by shipbuilders William Denny & Brothers. The contract required the ship to be completed six months at a contracted price of £17 per ton

26.
U-boat Campaign (World War I)
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The U-boat Campaign from 1914 to 1918 was the World War I naval campaign fought by German U-boats against the trade routes of the Allies. It took place largely in the seas around the British Isles, in the course of events, German U-boats sank almost 5,000 ships with nearly 13 million gross register ton, losing 178 boats and about 5,000 men in combat. In August 1914, a flotilla of nine U-boats sailed from their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea in the first submarine war patrol in history. Their aim was to sink capital ships of the British Grand Fleet, the first sortie was not a success. Only one attack was carried out, when U-15 fired a torpedo at HMS Monarch, two of the ten U-boats were lost. Later in the month, the U-boats achieved success, when U-21 sank the cruiser HMS Pathfinder, in September, SM U-9 sank three armored cruisers in a single action. In October U-9 sank the cruiser Hawke, and on the last day of the year SM U-24 sank the pre-dreadnought battleship Formidable, by the end of the initial campaign, the U-boats had sunk nine warships while losing five of their own number. The initial phase of the U-boat campaign in the Mediterranean comprised the actions by the Austro-Hungarian Navys U-boat force against the French, nevertheless, they had a number of successes. On 21 December 1914 U-12 torpedoed the French battleship Jean Bart, causing her to retire, but the Austro-Hungarian boats were unable to offer any interference to allied traffic in the Mediterranean beyond the Straits of Otranto. Its disadvantages were less obvious, but became apparent during the campaign, also, in the two main surface actions of this period the U-boat was unable to have any effect, the High Seas Fleet was unable to draw the Grand Fleet into a U-boat trap. The first attacks on merchant ships had started in October 1914, at that time there was no plan for a concerted U-boat offensive against Allied trade. It was recognized the U-boat had several drawbacks as a commerce raider, in the six months to the opening of the commerce war in February 1915, U-boats had sunk 19 ships, totalling 43,000 GRT. By early 1915, all the combatants had lost the illusion that the war could be won quickly, the blockade was unusually restrictive in that even food was considered contraband of war. Germany could not possibly deal with British naval strength on a basis. The German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, felt such a submarine blockade, based on shoot without warning, would antagonise the United States. However, he was unable to back the pressures for taking such a step. From February 18 onwards every enemy merchant vessel encountered in this zone will be destroyed, nor will it always be possible to avert the danger thereby threatened to the crew, in time, this would bring non-European nations into the war. The German U-boat force was now based at Ostend in Belgium

U-boat Campaign (World War I)
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A German postcard depicting the "SM U-20" U-boat sinking of RMS Lusitania.
U-boat Campaign (World War I)
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German U-boat U 14
U-boat Campaign (World War I)
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The British steamer Andex sinking after being torpedoed by a U-boat
U-boat Campaign (World War I)
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Official warning issued by Imperial German Embassy

27.
Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945)
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The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, running from 1939 to the defeat of Germany in 1945. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war and it was at its height from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943. The convoys, coming mainly from North America and predominantly going to the United Kingdom and these forces were aided by ships and aircraft of the United States from September 13,1941. The Germans were joined by submarines of the Italian Royal Navy after their Axis ally Italy entered the war on June 10,1940, as an island nation, the United Kingdom was highly dependent on imported goods. Britain required more than a million tons of imported material per week in order to be able to survive and fight. In essence, the Battle of the Atlantic was a war, the Allied struggle to supply Britain. From 1942 onwards, the Axis also sought to prevent the build-up of Allied supplies, the defeat of the U-boat threat was a pre-requisite for pushing back the Axis. The outcome of the battle was a victory for the Allies—the German blockade failed—but at great cost,3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships were sunk for the loss of 783 U-boats. The name Battle of the Atlantic was coined by Winston Churchill in February 1941 and it has been called the longest, largest, and most complex naval battle in history. The campaign started immediately after the European war began, during the so-called Phoney War and it involved thousands of ships in more than 100 convoy battles and perhaps 1,000 single-ship encounters, in a theatre covering millions of square miles of ocean. The Allies gradually gained the hand, overcoming German surface raiders by the end of 1942 and defeating the U-boats by mid-1943. The first meeting of the Cabinets Battle of the Atlantic Committee was on March 19, Churchill claimed to have coined the phrase Battle of the Atlantic shortly before Alexanders speech, but there are several examples of earlier usage. Following the use of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany in the First World War, countries tried to limit, even abolish, the effort failed. or active resistance to visit or search. This made restrictions on submarines effectively moot, in 1939, the Kriegsmarine lacked the strength to challenge the combined British Royal Navy and French Navy for command of the sea. Instead, German naval strategy relied on commerce raiding using capital ships, armed merchant cruisers, submarines and these ships immediately attacked British and French shipping. U-30 sank the ocean liner SS Athenia within hours of the declaration of war—in breach of her orders not to sink passenger ships, much of the early German anti-shipping activity involved minelaying by destroyers, aircraft and U-boats off British ports. With the outbreak of war, the British and French immediately began a blockade of Germany, the Royal Navy quickly introduced a convoy system for the protection of trade that gradually extended out from the British Isles, eventually reaching as far as Panama, Bombay and Singapore. Convoys allowed the Royal Navy to concentrate its escorts near the one place the U-boats were guaranteed to be found, each convoy consisted of between 30 and 70 mostly unarmed merchant ships

Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945)
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Officers on the bridge of an escorting British destroyer stand watch for enemy submarines, October 1941.
Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945)
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VizeadmiralKarl Dönitz, commander of German U-boats (BdU), 1935–1943; Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, 1943–1945.
Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945)
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The German submarine base in Lorient
Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945)
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A U-boat shells a merchant ship which has remained afloat after being torpedoed

28.
Second World War
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan

29.
U-boat
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U-boat is the anglicised version of the German word U-Boot, a shortening of Unterseeboot, literally undersea boat. While the German term refers to any submarine, the English one refers specifically to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role. Austro-Hungarian navy submarines were known as U-boats. The first submarine built in Germany, the three-man Brandtaucher, sank to the bottom of Kiel harbor on 1 February 1851 during a test dive, the inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer had designed this vessel in 1850, and Schweffel & Howaldt constructed it in Kiel. Dredging operations in 1887 rediscovered Brandtaucher, it was raised and put on display in Germany, there followed in 1890 the boats WW1 and WW2, built to a Nordenfelt design. The SM U-1 was a completely redesigned Karp-class submarine and only one was built, the Imperial German Navy commissioned it on 14 December 1906. It had a hull, a Körting kerosene engine. The 50%-larger SM U-2 had two torpedo tubes, the U-19 class of 1912–13 saw the first diesel engine installed in a German navy boat. At the start of World War I in 1914, Germany had 48 submarines of 13 classes in service or under construction, during that war the Imperial German Navy used SM U-1 for training. Retired in 1919, it remains on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, on 5 September 1914, HMS Pathfinder was sunk by SM U-21, the first ship to have been sunk by a submarine using a self-propelled torpedo. On 22 September, U-9 sank the obsolete British warships HMS Aboukir, HMS Cressy, for the first few months of the war, U-boat anticommerce actions observed the prize rules of the time, which governed the treatment of enemy civilian ships and their occupants. On 20 October 1914, SM U-17 sank the first merchant ship, surface commerce raiders were proving to be ineffective, and on 4 February 1915, the Kaiser assented to the declaration of a war zone in the waters around the British Isles. This was cited as a retaliation for British minefields and shipping blockades, under the instructions given to U-boat captains, they could sink merchant ships, even potentially neutral ones, without warning. In February 1915, a submarine U-6 was rammed and both periscopes were destroyed off Beachy Head by the collier SS Thordis commanded by Captain John Bell RNR after firing a torpedo, on 7 May 1915, SM U-20 sank the liner RMS Lusitania. The sinking claimed 1,198 lives,128 of them American civilians, munitions that it carried were thousands of crates full of ammunition for rifles, 3-inch artillery shells, and also various other standard ammunition used by infantry. The sinking of the Lusitania was widely used as propaganda against the German Empire, a widespread reaction in the U. S was not seen until the sinking of the ferry SS Sussex. The sinking occurred in 1915 and the United States entered the war in 1917, the initial U. S. response was to threaten to sever diplomatic ties, which persuaded the Germans to issue the Sussex pledge that reimposed restrictions on U-boat activity

30.
George V of the United Kingdom
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George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. He was the son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. From the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession behind his father and his own brother, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence. From 1877 to 1891, George served in the Royal Navy, on the death of his grandmother in 1901, Georges father became King-Emperor of the British Empire, and George was created Prince of Wales. He succeeded his father in 1910 and he was the only Emperor of India to be present at his own Delhi Durbar. His reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, the Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, in 1924 he appointed the first Labour ministry and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognised the dominions of the Empire as separate, independent states within the Commonwealth of Nations. He had health problems throughout much of his reign and at his death was succeeded by his eldest son. George was born on 3 June 1865, in Marlborough House and he was the second son of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Albert Edward and Alexandra. His father was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and he was baptised at Windsor Castle on 7 July 1865 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Longley. As a younger son of the Prince of Wales, there was expectation that George would become king. He was third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother, George was only 17 months younger than Albert Victor, and the two princes were educated together. John Neale Dalton was appointed as their tutor in 1871, neither Albert Victor nor George excelled intellectually. For three years from 1879, the brothers served on HMS Bacchante, accompanied by Dalton. They toured the colonies of the British Empire in the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia, and visited Norfolk, Virginia, as well as South America, the Mediterranean, Egypt, Dalton wrote an account of their journey entitled The Cruise of HMS Bacchante. Between Melbourne and Sydney, Dalton recorded a sighting of the Flying Dutchman, after Lausanne, the brothers were separated, Albert Victor attended Trinity College, Cambridge, while George continued in the Royal Navy. He travelled the world, visiting many areas of the British Empire, during his naval career he commanded Torpedo Boat 79 in home waters then HMS Thrush on the North America station, before his last active service in command of HMS Melampus in 1891–92. From then on, his rank was largely honorary

George V of the United Kingdom
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Coronation portrait by Sir Luke Fildes, 1911
George V of the United Kingdom
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George as a young boy, 1870
George V of the United Kingdom
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George, 1893
George V of the United Kingdom
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York Cottage at Sandringham House: George and his wife lived here from 1893 to 1926.

31.
Edward VIII
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Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India, from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December the same year. Edward was the eldest son of George V and Mary of Teck and he was named Prince of Wales on his sixteenth birthday, nine weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, he served in the British Army during the First World War, Edward became king on his fathers death in early 1936. However, he showed impatience with court protocol, and caused concern among politicians by his apparent disregard for established constitutional conventions. Only months into his reign, he caused a crisis by proposing marriage to Wallis Simpson. When it became apparent that he could not marry Wallis and remain on the throne and he was succeeded by his younger brother, George VI. With a reign of 326 days, Edward was one of the monarchs in British history. After his abdication, he was created Duke of Windsor and he married Wallis in France on 3 June 1937, after her second divorce became final. Later that year, the couple toured Germany, after the war, Edward spent the rest of his life in retirement in France. Edward was born on 23 June 1894 at White Lodge, Richmond Park and he was the eldest son of the Duke and Duchess of York. His father was the son of the Prince and Princess of Wales and his mother was the eldest daughter of Francis and Mary Adelaide, Duke and Duchess of Teck. At the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession to the throne and he was baptised Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David in the Green Drawing Room of White Lodge on 16 July 1894 by Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury. The names were chosen in honour of Edwards late uncle, who was known to his family as Eddy or Edward and he was always known to his family and close friends by his last given name, David. As was common practice with children of the time, Edward. One of Edwards early nannies often abused him by pinching him before he was due to be presented to his parents and his subsequent crying and wailing would lead the Duke and Duchess to send him and the nanny away. The nanny was discharged after her mistreatment of the children was discovered, Edwards father, though a harsh disciplinarian, was demonstrably affectionate, and his mother displayed a frolicsome side with her children that belied her austere public image. She was amused by the children making tadpoles on toast for their French master, initially Edward was tutored at home by Helen Bricka. Upon his parents return, Edward was placed under the care of two men, Frederick Finch and Henry Hansell, who brought up Edward and his brothers

32.
Edward VIII abdication crisis
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The marriage was opposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth. Religious, legal, political and moral objections were raised, as British monarch, Edward was the nominal head of the Church of England, which did not then allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still alive. For this reason, it was believed that Edward could not marry Simpson. Simpson was perceived to be politically and socially unsuitable as a queen consort because of her two failed marriages. It was widely assumed by the Establishment that she was driven by love of money or position rather than love for the King, despite the opposition, Edward declared that he loved Simpson and intended to marry her whether his governments approved or not. The widespread unwillingness to accept Simpson as the Kings consort and Edwards refusal to give her up led to his abdication in December 1936 and they remained married until his death 35 years later. Edward had been introduced to Wallis Simpson, an American citizen and wife of British shipping executive Ernest Aldrich Simpson, Ernest Simpson was Walliss second husband, her first marriage, to U. S. Navy pilot Win Spencer, had ended in divorce in 1927. It is generally accepted that Wallis Simpson and the Prince of Wales became lovers in 1934, however, Edward adamantly insisted to his father that he was not physically intimate with Simpson and that it was inappropriate to describe her as his mistress. Edwards relationship with Simpson further weakened his poor relationship with his parents, although King George V and Queen Mary met Simpson at Buckingham Palace in 1935, they later refused to receive her. The prospect of having an American divorcee with a questionable past having such sway over the heir apparent led to anxiety among government and establishment figures, Edward VIII succeeded his father on 20 January 1936, after which Simpson attended more official functions as the Kings guest. Despite her name appearing regularly in the Court Circular, the name of her husband was conspicuously absent, nevertheless, Canadians and expatriate Britons, who had access to the foreign reports, were largely scandalised by the coverage. By October, it was rumoured in high society and abroad that Edward intended to marry Simpson as soon as she was free to do so. At the end of month, the crisis came to a head when she filed for divorce. Judging by the letters from British subjects living in countries where the Press has been outspoken. Senior British ministers knew that Hardinge had written to the King, the King invited Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to Buckingham Palace the following Monday and informed him that he intended to marry Simpson. Baldwin replied that such a marriage would not be acceptable to the people, the Queen becomes the Queen of the country. Therefore in the choice of a Queen the voice of the people must be heard, baldwins view was shared by the Australian High Commissioner in London, Stanley Bruce, who was a former Australian prime minister. On the same day that Hardinge wrote to the King, Bruce met Hardinge and then wrote to Baldwin, some of us wish that he gave more positive signs of his awareness

33.
George VI
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George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India and the first Head of the Commonwealth, known as Albert until his accession, George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, and was named after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort. As the second son of King George V, he was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his life in the shadow of his elder brother. He attended naval college as a teenager, and served in the Royal Navy, in 1920, he was made Duke of York. He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, in the mid-1920s, he had speech therapy for a stammer, which he never fully overcame. Georges elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII upon the death of their father in 1936, however, later that year Edward revealed his desire to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised Edward that for political and religious reasons he could not marry a divorced woman, Edward abdicated in order to marry, and George ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor. During Georges reign, the break-up of the British Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations accelerated, the parliament of the Irish Free State removed direct mention of the monarch from the countrys constitution on the day of his accession. The following year, a new Irish constitution changed the name of the state to Ireland, from 1939, the Empire and Commonwealth – except Ireland – was at war with Nazi Germany. War with Italy and Japan followed in 1940 and 1941, respectively, though Britain and its allies were ultimately victorious in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union rose as pre-eminent world powers and the British Empire declined. After the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, George remained king of countries, but relinquished the title of Emperor of India in June 1948. Ireland formally declared itself a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1949, George adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth. He was beset by problems in the later years of his reign. He was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Elizabeth II, George was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria. His father was Prince George, Duke of York, the second and eldest-surviving son of the Prince and his mother was the Duchess of York, the eldest child and only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Teck. His birthday was the 34th anniversary of the death of his great-grandfather, Albert, uncertain of how the Prince Consorts widow, Queen Victoria, would take the news of the birth, the Prince of Wales wrote to the Duke of York that the Queen had been rather distressed. Two days later, he again, I really think it would gratify her if you yourself proposed the name Albert to her. Consequently, he was baptised Albert Frederick Arthur George at St. Mary Magdalenes Church near Sandringham three months later, within the family, he was known informally as Bertie

34.
Elizabeth II
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Elizabeth II has been Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand since 6 February 1952. Elizabeth was born in London as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake duties during the Second World War. Elizabeths many historic visits and meetings include a visit to the Republic of Ireland. She has seen major changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation. She has reigned through various wars and conflicts involving many of her realms and she is the worlds oldest reigning monarch as well as Britains longest-lived. In October 2016, she became the longest currently reigning monarch, in 2017 she became the first British monarch to commemorate a Sapphire Jubilee. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiments and press criticism of the family, however, support for the monarchy remains high. Elizabeth was born at 02,40 on 21 April 1926, during the reign of her paternal grandfather and her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York, was the second son of the King. Her mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and she was delivered by Caesarean section at her maternal grandfathers London house,17 Bruton Street, Mayfair. Elizabeths only sibling, Princess Margaret, was born in 1930, the two princesses were educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford, who was casually known as Crawfie. Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature and music, Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margarets childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family. The book describes Elizabeths love of horses and dogs, her orderliness, others echoed such observations, Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when she was two as a character. She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant and her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as a jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and well-behaved. During her grandfathers reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father, the Duke of York. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, many people believed that he would marry and have children of his own. When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second-in-line to the throne, later that year, Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Consequently, Elizabeths father became king, and she became heir presumptive, if her parents had had a later son, she would have lost her position as first-in-line, as her brother would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession

35.
Remembrance Day
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Following a tradition inaugurated by King George V in 1919, the day is also marked by war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries. Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November in most countries to recall the end of hostilities of World War I on that date in 1918, the First World War officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919. The memorial evolved out of Armistice Day, which continues to be marked on the same date, the first official Armistice Day was subsequently held on the grounds of Buckingham Palace the following morning. The red remembrance poppy has become an emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem In Flanders Fields written by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. After reading the poem, Moina Michael, a professor at the University of Georgia, wrote the poem, We Shall Remember, the custom spread to Europe and the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth within three years. Madame Anne E. Guerin tirelessly promoted the practice in Europe, in the UK Major George Howson fostered the cause with the support of General Haig. Poppies were worn for the first time at the 1921 anniversary ceremony, at first real poppies were worn. These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, the Flowers of the Forest, O Valiant Hearts, I Vow to Thee, My Country and Jerusalem are often played during the service. Services also include wreaths laid to honour the fallen, a blessing, the central ritual at cenotaphs throughout the Commonwealth is a stylised night vigil. The Last Post was the bugle call at the close of the military day. This makes the ritual more than just an act of remembrance, the act is enhanced by the use of dedicated cenotaphs and the laying of wreaths—the traditional means of signalling high honours in ancient Greece and Rome. Services are held at 11 am at war memorials and schools in suburbs and cities across the country, at which the Last Post is sounded by a bugler and a one-minute silence is observed. In recent decades, Remembrance Day has been eclipsed as the national day of war commemoration by ANZAC Day. When Remembrance Day falls on a working day in Melbourne and other major cities. While this occurs, the majority of passers by stop and observe a moment of silence while waiting for the bugler to finish the recital, in Barbados, Remembrance Day is not a public holiday. It is recognised as 11 November, but the parade and ceremonial events are carried out on Remembrance Sunday, the day is celebrated to recognise the Barbadian soldiers who died fighting in the First and Second World Wars. The parade is held at National Heroes Square, where a service is held. The Governor-General and Barbadian Prime Minister are among those who attend, along with government dignitaries

36.
British Empire
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The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the population at the time. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread, during the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, after the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain, the British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. In Britain, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, during the 19th Century, Britains population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britains economic lead, subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on the military, financial and manpower resources of Britain, although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the worlds pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britains colonies in Southeast Asia were occupied by Imperial Japan, despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britains most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire, fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again

British Empire
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A replica of The Matthew, John Cabot 's ship used for his second voyage to the New World.
British Empire
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Flag
British Empire
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African slaves working in 17th-century Virginia, by an unknown artist, 1670.
British Empire
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Fort St. George was founded at Madras in 1639.

37.
List of merchant navy capacity by country
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List of merchant navy capacity by flag is a list of the world foremost fleets of registered trading vessels ranked in both gross register tonnage and deadweight tonnage sorted by flag state. The table is based on the maritime shipping statistics provided by the British Government. It is complete and correct for the year ending 2012, statistics are published on an annual basis every September. While countries such as Panama may appear to possess a large merchant navy and this largely includes the merchant navies of British Overseas Territories and UK merchant navy interests in former colonies. This is known as flag of convenience, ship registration Merchant Navy CIA - World Factbook - Merchant Marine - List of countries by Merchant Marine, generally total tonnage of ships is more important than total number of ships

List of merchant navy capacity by country
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Present-day merchant shipping in the world's oceans

38.
CIA World Fact Book
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The World Factbook is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is available from the National Technical Information Service, Other companies—such as Skyhorse Publishing—also print a paper edition. The Factbook is available in the form of a website that is updated every week. It is also available for download for use off-line, the World Factbook is prepared by the CIA for the use of U. S. Government officials, and its style, format, coverage, and content are primarily designed to meet their requirements. However, it is used as a resource for academic research papers. As a work of the U. S. Government, it is in the domain in the United States. In researching the Factbook, the CIA uses the sources listed below, Other public and private sources are also consulted. However, the CIA requests that it be cited when the Factbook is used, copying the official seal of the CIA without permission is prohibited by U. S. federal law—specifically, the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. Before November 2001 The World Factbook website was updated yearly, from 2004 to 2010 it was updated every two weeks, since 2010 it has been updated weekly, generally, information currently available as of January 1 of the current year is used in preparing the Factbook. The first, classified, edition of Factbook was published in August 1962, the World Factbook was first available to the public in print in 1975. In 2008 the CIA discontinued printing the Factbook themselves, instead turning printing responsibilities over to the Government Printing Office and this happened due to a CIA decision to focus Factbook resources on the online edition. The Factbook has been on the World Wide Web since October 1994, the web version gets an average of 6 million visits per month, it can also be downloaded. The official printed version is sold by the Government Printing Office, in past years, the Factbook was available on CD-ROM, microfiche, magnetic tape, and floppy disk. Many Internet sites use information and images from the CIA World Factbook, several publishers, including Grand River Books, Potomac Books, and Skyhorse Publishing have re-published the Factbook in recent years. As of July 2011, The World Factbook consists of 267 entities and these entities can be divided into categories. They are, Independent countries This category has independent countries, which the CIA defines as people politically organized into a state with a definite territory. In this category, there are 195 entities, others The Other category is a list of other places set apart from the list of independent countries. Currently there are two, Taiwan and the European Union, dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty This category is a list of places affiliated with another country

CIA World Fact Book
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Cover of the latest government print edition of The World Factbook (2013–14 edition)
CIA World Fact Book
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A map of Serbia and Montenegro from the 2000 edition of The World Factbook. Notice how the disclaimer is printed in the upper right hand corner. One can see how the capital cities of both republics are individually labeled on the map.

39.
Deadweight tonnage
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Deadweight tonnage or tons deadweight is a measure of how much mass a ship is carrying or can safely carry, it does not include the weight of the ship. DWT is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provisions, passengers, DWT is often used to specify a ships maximum permissible deadweight, although it may also denote the actual DWT of a ship not loaded to capacity. Deadweight tonnage is a measure of a weight carrying capacity. It should not be confused with displacement which includes the ships own weight, nor other volume or capacity measures such as gross tonnage or net tonnage

Deadweight tonnage
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The more heavily loaded a ship is, the lower she sits in the water. Maximum DWT is the amount of weight a ship can carry without riding dangerously low in the water.
Deadweight tonnage
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Scale for a 6,000 tonne DWT ship.

40.
Government of the United Kingdom
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Her Majestys Government, commonly referred to as the UK government or British government, is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The government is led by the Prime Minister, who all the remaining ministers. The prime minister and the other most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee, the government ministers all sit in Parliament, and are accountable to it. After an election, the monarch selects as prime minister the leader of the party most likely to command a majority of MPs in the House of Commons. Under the uncodified British constitution, executive authority lies with the monarch, although this authority is exercised only by, or on the advice of, the prime minister, the Cabinet members advise the monarch as members of the Privy Council. They also exercise power directly as leaders of the Government Departments, the current prime minister is Theresa May, who took office on 13 July 2016. She is the leader of the Conservative Party, which won a majority of seats in the House of Commons in the election on 7 May 2015. Prior to this, Cameron and the Conservatives led a government from 2010 to 2015 with the Liberal Democrats. A key principle of the British Constitution is that the government is responsible to Parliament, Britain is a constitutional monarchy in which the reigning monarch does not make any open political decisions. All political decisions are taken by the government and Parliament and this constitutional state of affairs is the result of a long history of constraining and reducing the political power of the monarch, beginning with the Magna Carta in 1215. Parliament is split into two houses, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the House of Commons is the lower house and is the more powerful. The House of Lords is the house and although it can vote to amend proposed laws. Parliamentary time is essential for bills to be passed into law, Ministers of the Crown are responsible to the House in which they sit, they make statements in that House and take questions from members of that House. For most senior ministers this is usually the elected House of Commons rather than the House of Lords, since the start of Edward VIIs reign, in 1901, the prime minister has always been an elected member of Parliament and therefore directly accountable to the House of Commons. Under the British system the government is required by convention and for reasons to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons. It requires the support of the House of Commons for the maintenance of supply, by convention if a government loses the confidence of the House of Commons it must either resign or a General Election is held. The support of the Lords, while useful to the government in getting its legislation passed without delay, is not vital, a government is not required to resign even if it loses the confidence of the Lords and is defeated in key votes in that House. The House of Commons is thus the Responsible house, the prime minister is held to account during Prime Ministers Question Time which provides an opportunity for MPs from all parties to question the PM on any subject

Government of the United Kingdom
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Main entrance of 10 Downing Street, the residence and offices of the First Lord of HM Treasury
Government of the United Kingdom
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United Kingdom
Government of the United Kingdom
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Refurbishment notice at Old Fire Station, Oxford, showing HM Government support.

41.
Warsash Maritime Academy
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Warsash Maritime Academy is a maritime training college and is part of Southampton Solent University. The academy campus is just east of Southampton aside the River Hamble, the college provides education, training, consultancy and research to the international shipping and off-shore oil industries. It is one of the United Kingdoms colleges responsible for the training of the British Merchant Navy, the Southampton School of Navigation originated with the death of a Southampton wine merchant Henry Robinson Hartley, in 1850. He bequeathed £42,524 to the Southampton Corporation which they received some years later, after the need to raise additional funds the school was eventually finished in 1902. It was granted university status and known as the Hartley Institute. In 1932 the school was expanded when it merged with the Gilchrist Navigation school, at that time the school was confined to preparing students for Board of Trade certificate examinations for Mate, Master and Extra Master. 51 students were taught at this time by two staff. In 1934 the college expanded to accommodate day cadets and courses for civil air navigation and it was during this time that Captain Whalley Wakeford was appointed as head of the school. Residential cadet courses began in 1937 with cadets completing a sea preparatory course, by 1939 there were 19 cadets,129 day students and 15 staff and the school has moved to a new home at South Stoneham House in Swaythling where it remained until 1946. During the Second World War the school remained open to train mariners, in 1940 all students and cadets had joined the Local Defence Volunteers. Courses continued to run despite bombing in the Southampton area, cadets were still trained and additional courses were created for existing officers from the armed services and abroad, including some 60 free Polish cadets. At the request of the United States a special course was provided in 1945 for naval officers stationed in the United Kingdom. By 1946 the entire school had moved to Warsash and included over 316 students and 32 staff, in 1957 a new building programme at the college began. Three new residential blocks were created, as well as a refectory building, one accommodation block Shackleton was finished in 1960 and won an RIBA gold medal. By 1967 a new teaching block had again been constructed and the school was now offering tankers courses as well as Bsc in Nautical Science, in 1970 Whalley Wakeford, the schools long standing Director retired and the school removed itself from direct control of Southampton University. By 1978 the school had purchased additional grounds and had built a new fire school, additionally the use of the week based sea training out in the Solent also came to an end. Previously the college had its own small sized training vessels - Moyana, the school was renamed Warsash Maritime College and went through a period of building expansion which included a new pier, library and engineering block. The manned model facility remains the one in the United Kingdom

Warsash Maritime Academy
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A recent example of Warsash Maritime Deck Cadets at their officer 'passing out' ceremony in Southampton, with Former First Sea Lord Admiral Baron West of Spithead.
Warsash Maritime Academy
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The Academy Pier, used for sea-survival and lifeboat training as well as watersports and motor boat training.

42.
Southampton
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Southampton, on the south coast of England, is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire. It is 75 miles south-west of London and 19 miles north-west of Portsmouth, Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest. It lies at the northernmost point of Southampton Water at the confluence of the Rivers Test and Itchen, the city, which is a unitary authority, has an estimated population of 253,651. The citys name is abbreviated in writing to Soton or Soton. Significant employers in the city include the University of Southampton, Southampton Solent University, Southampton Airport, Ordnance Survey, BBC South, Southampton has a large shopping centre and retail park, Westquay. In 2014, the city approved a follow-up from the Westquay park, WestQuay Watermark. This built-up area is part of the area known as South Hampshire. With a population of over 1.5 million this makes the one of the United Kingdoms most populous metropolitan areas. Archaeological finds suggest that the area has been inhabited since the stone age, following the Roman invasion of Britain in AD43 and the conquering of the local Britons in 70 AD the fortress settlement of Clausentum was established. It was an important trading port and defensive outpost of Winchester, Clausentum was defended by a wall and two ditches and is thought to have contained a bath house. Clausentum was not abandoned until around 410, the Anglo-Saxons formed a new, larger, settlement across the Itchen centred on what is now the St Marys area of the city. The settlement was known as Hamwic, which evolved into Hamtun, archaeological excavations of this site have uncovered one of the best collections of Saxon artefacts in Europe. It is from this town that the county of Hampshire gets its name, viking raids from 840 onwards contributed to the decline of Hamwic in the 9th century, and by the 10th century a fortified settlement, which became medieval Southampton, had been established. Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, Southampton became the port of transit between the then capital of England, Winchester, and Normandy. By the 13th century Southampton had become a port, particularly involved in the import of French wine in exchange for English cloth. The Franciscan friary in Southampton was founded circa 1233, the friars constructed a water supply system in 1290, which carried water from Conduit Head some 1.7 kilometres to the site of the friary inside the town walls. Further remains can be observed at Conduit House on Commercial Road, the friars granted use of the water to the town in 1310. The town was sacked in 1338 by French, Genoese and Monegasque ships, on visiting Southampton in 1339, Edward III ordered that walls be built to close the town

43.
Alan West, Baron West of Spithead
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Prior to his ministerial appointment, he was First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 2002 to 2006. He is the current Chancellor of Southampton Solent University, West was born on 21 April 1948 in Lambeth, London, and was educated at Windsor Grammar School and Clydebank High School. He was confirmed as a sub-lieutenant on 1 September 1969, in 1980 he was promoted to commander and took command of the frigate HMS Ardent, and deployed to the Indian Ocean taking part in the first Armilla Patrol. In 1982 he laid a wreath off Norway, on the spot inside the Arctic Circle where the previous Ardent had been sunk in 1940 by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Shortly after, the deployed to the South Atlantic for the Falklands War. West was the last to leave the ship and was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership. West led the parade through the City of London on return from the Falkland Islands. He remains the President of the HMS Ardent Association, in 1986, while working on the Naval Staff at the Ministry of Defence, West left documents detailing large cuts to the Navy on a canal towpath. These documents were recovered and then published by a journalist from the Mail on Sunday, at a subsequent court martial West pleaded guilty to charges of negligence and breaching security. He explained that they had fallen from his coat pocket whilst walking a friends dog, West was issued with a severe reprimand, the second lightest sentence available. The severe reprimand that he received was time expired before he became eligible for promotion to flag rank, in 1992 he attended the Royal College of Defence Studies, where he produced a Seaford House Paper on why the UK needed a ‘Grand Strategy’. West became rear admiral on appointment as Naval Secretary in March 1994, responsible for appointing and also naval manning. In February 1996 he became Commander United Kingdom Task Group deploying to the Gulf for the first UK fighter patrols over Iraq, in October 1997 he was promoted to vice admiral and Chief of Defence Intelligence. West was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 2000 New Year Honours and he became a full admiral in November 2000 when he took up the post of Commander-in-Chief Fleet, NATO Commander-in-Chief East Atlantic and NATO Commander Allied Naval Forces North. West co-ordinated the naval response to the September 11 attacks in the North Arabian Sea, West was appointed as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff in September 2002. He was also a member of the Defence Council and Admiralty Board as well as First, in his role he had overall responsibility for fighting effectiveness and morale of the Naval Service for the successful operations on the US right flank in the invasion of Iraq. In 2004 he appeared on BBC Radio 4 and spoke about Trafalgar 200, Trafalgar 200 was a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. It saw a fleet in the Solent led by Queen Elizabeth II

Alan West, Baron West of Spithead
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Lord West in September 2013
Alan West, Baron West of Spithead
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The frigate HMS Ardent which West commanded during the Falklands War
Alan West, Baron West of Spithead
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The Former First Sea Lord in his capacity as Chancellor of Southampton Solent University with graduating British Merchant Navy officers in 2011.
Alan West, Baron West of Spithead
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Admiral Sir Alan West, then First Sea Lord, is pictured with the official chart of anchorages for the International Fleet Review

44.
Deck department
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The deck department is an organisational team on-board naval and merchant ships. The department and its requirements, including the responsibilities of each rank are regulated within the STCW Convention. The department is led by Deck Officers, who are Licensed mariners, the Deck department is divided into Deck Officers and Ratings. All ranks in the department are required to have undertaken training in accordance with the STCW Convention. For Officers this involves the passing of an exam to receive a certificate of competency, all ranks are required to have undertaken generic maritime training, which usually involves time at sea and time in an approved college. International standards under the STCW Code set out the requirements for training. For example, in the United Kingdom the Maritime and Coastguard Agency ensure that the deck department receive training, all seafarers of the deck department are also required to have undertaken a series of short course training, in various elements under the STCW Convention. This includes general security, safety and lifeboat training, as well as vessel specific training, such as operations in the Polar regions, while the Master or Captain is in overall command of the ship, the chief mate is the head of the deck department. This involves administrative tasks such as scheduling work, quality control, coordinating with other departments, the Chief Mate also compiles supply, overtime, and cost control records, and requisitions or purchases stores and equipment. Depending on the number of officers carried, he may or may not be a watch officer, if the ship carries a Second Mate and two Third Mates, he will be a dayworker, with a duty day from 0800 to 1700 ships time. If only one Third Mate is carried, he will stand the 4 to 8 watch in addition to handling his executive duties, the ships other deck officers, generally a Second Mate and Third Mate, are also members of the Deck Department. Each watchstanding officer is responsible for the crewmen on his watch. In a four mate ship where the Chief Mate is a dayworker, in the days before satellite navigation systems, the Second Mate shot morning and evening star fixes to determine the ships position. The Second Mate is also responsible for maintaining the ships charts and navigational publications, the ships gyrocompass, the two Third Mates are often called the Senior Third and the Junior Third. The Senior Third Mate stands the 12 to 4 watch, the Junior Third the 8 to 12 watch, in the military, the deck department comprises sailors who perform a variety of functions depending on ship type and size. Undesignated seamen, or those who have not selected a rating, are normally the most junior sailors on board and are sent to the Deck Department for their first assignment

Deck department
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The deck department is responsible for safely receiving, discharging, and caring for cargo during a voyage.
Deck department
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The ship's bosun, an able seaman (AB) day worker, and a watchstander AB are seen here working aloft aboard a U.S. freighter to maintain cargoRigging.

45.
South Tyneside College
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South Tyneside College is a large further education college in South Tyneside in North East England. Its main site is in the town of South Shields, the college offers part-time and full-time courses for young students and adults. The college is one of the largest merchant navy training colleges in the United Kingdom. It offers courses in marine subjects marine education such as navigation, operations, mechanical and electrical engineering, communications, the Marine and Technical College was formerly based in Ocean Road, South Shields, in a purpose-built building opened in 1869. This is now a house called Kirkpatricks. The former planetarium was closed in 2008, despite local objection. The college also used to own a campus in Hebburn however this was closed in 2011 due to upkeep costs, also situated on the Westoe Campus, is the Dr Winterbottom Halls of Residence. Opening in 1978, Dr Winterbottom Halls of Residence comprises six residential blocks, the South Tyneside College Rugby Union Football Club currently plays in the Durham & Northumberland Three and in Cup competitions. The club has two senior sides and its home pitch is on the College campus. College website Historical records at Tyne & Wear Archives

South Tyneside College
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South Tyneside College

46.
Blackpool and The Fylde College
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Blackpool and the Fylde College is an Ofsted outstanding further and higher education college in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. Facilities include 4 main campuses located across the Fylde Coast, all of which have undergone or are currently undergoing major redevelopment. The college is an Associate College of Lancaster University and offers full and part-time further education, higher education, the sites in Fleetwood form a specialised Nautical campus, which teaches courses for merchant seafarers and offshore workers. The maritime courses are taught in association with Liverpool John Moores University rather than Lancaster University, the history of B&FC dates back to 1892s opening of Fleetwoods School for Fishermen, which later developed into the Nautical campus. Blackpool Technical College opened in 1937, and expanded again to include the Bispham site c.1970, the Fleetwood and Blackpool colleges combined into B&FC in 1987. The colleges Lytham site has most recently converted to provide sixth form facilities, in conjunction with Lytham St Annes Technology. Bispham Gateway Fleetwood Nautical Seasiders Learning University Centre B&FC Students Union is affiliated with the NUS, the SU represents students on a range of issues, including equality and diversity, education and social activities